


Steel Sharpens Steel

by misanthrobot (augmentalize)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Anal Sex, Conspiracy, Corporate Espionage, Gen, M/M, Paranoia, Past Relationship(s), Safer Sex, Secret Identity, Size Difference, Trust Issues, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2018-11-04 09:20:51
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 30,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10987989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/augmentalize/pseuds/misanthrobot
Summary: On the way to Gibraltar, Brigitte and Reinhardt stop off at a garage in Toledo, owned and operated by one of Torbjörn's old acquaintances from his days in the Ironclad Guild. They mean to patch up his armor before heading to Watchpoint: Gibraltar to answer Winston's recall, but when Reinhardt wakes up in the middle of the night to find a vigilante at the door, he finds himself caught up with a man he feels a familiar draw to, and with an anti-Omnic conspiracy with LumériCo at its center.





	1. Once Upon a Time in Toledo

When they arrive in Toledo, Reinhardt is dismayed to find they don’t have currywurst in any of the local eateries. Brigitte is relieved that the van will have a brief reprieve from smelling like fried pork. The Crusader armor is still mostly a mess being held together with what they could manage to find on the road and with Brigitte’s dab hand at engineering. That can’t keep it together forever, so their first stop is a garage owned by Marisol Fuentes, an old friend of Torbjörn’s from his Ironclad days.

“Make yourselves at home,” says Marisol, reaching out a hand to shake Reinhardt’s hand and then Brigitte's, who she pulls in for a hug. Brigitte groans and Mari laughs and picks her up, spinning her around. She’s taller than Brigitte, with copper-toned skin and dark, curly hair pulled up into a loose bun. When she smiles wide, her eyes crinkle at the corners. “Anything for the daughter of Lindholm.”

Mari puts her down and Brigitte laughs and flushes, rubbing the back of her neck. “Dad’s told me a lot about you,” she says. Reinhardt sets a piece of armor on the worktable and ducks back into the van for more, keeping one ear on their conversation as best he can.

“Did he tell you about the time he almost shattered my knee with a wrench the first time we met?” Mari laughs low under her breath, “Such a touchy man when it comes to being wrong.”

Brigitte’s shoulders raise almost to her ears.

“He’s like that sometimes,” she says, remembering the hours they would spend arguing long after she’d stopped caring what the topic even was. Engineering usually, sometimes her own personal decisions, her lack of interest in stability. Out of the corner of his eye, Reinhardt can tell when she starts to feel nervous and awkward, not wanting to get into the topic of her father now. He sets his helmet down and steps over briskly. Coming up behind her, Reinhardt blindsides the other woman, lifting Mari up into the air in a great bear hug. He squeezes her and she makes a wheezing sound before he puts her down and lets go.

“My apologies. Sometimes I get a little… enthusiastic when expressing my gratitude.

" _Claro que si._ ” Mari pats him on the shoulder and presses a hand to her lower back, then fishes out the keys from her jacket pocket, tossing them to Brigitte. “The place is yours for as long as you need it. There’s a room in the back that we keep for people who stay a little late to finish up projects. You have the run of it.”

Brigitte thanks her because she isn’t sure what else to do, and when Mari leaves, turns to Reinhardt, who is heaving the final piece of his chassis onto the table.

“We should try to make ourselves comfortable while we’re here, since this is where we’ll be bunking.” Reinhardt makes a noise of affront and shakes his head.

“Brigitte, we have been traveling non-stop, and you have been working on the armor as well. You need a better rest than in a garage.”

“I’ve been sleeping in a garage since I was knee-high.”

“Knee-high to whom?”

“Dad would be so pissed if he heard you say that.”

“Then it is a good thing he isn’t here,” Reinhardt says, stepping up to her and putting his hands on her shoulders. “We have enough to spare for you to find a real bed to sleep in.”

“And you’re going to sleep here,” she says, one eyebrow raised skeptically. “Aren’t you a little old to be roughing it?”

“If I am so old, then humor this old man and get some real rest.” At that, Brigitte softens and lets out a sigh, dropping her shoulders and stepping in, laying her forehead on his chest. She hates being reminded of his age, that he could be gone soon. Maybe even sooner, with how he insists on living his life, how he intends to rejoin Overwatch, PETRAS Act be damned.

“Fine,” she huffs, “But you better not be using this as an excuse to go out and get more of those tiny appetizers.”

“ _Tapas_ ,” he supplies, and Brigitte confirms that with a resolute nod and gives him a glare. He throws his hands up in a placating gesture. “And I wouldn’t dream of it.”

Brigitte snorts, doubting. “If you say so, Uncle Rein. I’m going to take the van and find a hotel. Let me know if you need anything.” She shoulders her bag, which she’d unloaded before her conversation with Mari, and tosses it into the passenger seat.

“And I mean it, Reinhardt,” says Brigitte, pointing back at him. “No late night wandering.”

“Call me when you find a place to say,” he says instead, promising nothing.

+++

While he never promised to remain, he still stays in the garage. Reinhardt isn’t entirely confident about leaving his armor here for the sake of an easy meal, and he isn’t a stranger to lacking in food. Such is the life of a gentleman adventurer. The slight ache of hunger doesn’t bother him, and he keeps himself busy by exploring the garage and admiring the tools, picking the ones up that have clearly been hastily left in the wrong places and putting them back where he thinks they belong. Dirty rags go into laundry baskets, wrenches are put back into their proper rows and positions based on size, and he goes on doing this and musing. He’s surprised anyone who worked with Torbjörn is this messy. Even Brigette keeps her tools as neat as possible, despite disagreeing with her father on so much else.

It isn’t until he sends Mari a few texts about the disarray that he starts to get truly suspicious, because the first thing she asks is whether or not he’s safe. Reinhardt stares at the words on his phone for a few moments before frowning deeply enough to crease his brow, then considers the state of disorganization in the garage. It’s unlikely that Mari’s workers dropped what they were doing for the sake of himself and Brigitte.

You could have told me of your problems  
I would have been glad to help a friend

All he gets back in return is a single word of apology.

Still, it must be a testament to his experiences that he still manages to fall asleep despite the apparent looming danger, but he has always been confident in his ability to keep himself safe. Some might say _overconfident_ , but after countless battles and the loss of his eye, Reinhardt knows how to toe the line. He sleeps lightly, and wakes the moment he hears someone swearing softly after they knock into the cart he placed near the back entrance.

He hears the cart being moved out of the way, the sound of someone feeling their way around the shop for the light switch as he pulls himself quietly off the couch and slowly cracks the door leading out of the back room. If their burglar is knocking around into things, it’s safe to say he’s unfamiliar with the place. He considers reaching for his hammer, then thinks better of it. The damage he could cause to an unarmored assailant is considerable and messy, not to mention the property damage. Instead, he feels around the wall closest to the door and picks the first and largest wrench he touches with the tips of his fingers.

Subtlety would serve him well in this case, sneaking around and clocking the thief softly with the wrench as the strange red glow of his flashlight casts around one side of the garage. Reinhardt, however, knows that the element of surprise can be achieved in many ways, which is why he charges straight for the light with a yell.

The battle cry is probably not necessary, he thinks with surprising calm, but it is fun.

Reinhardt has time before they collide for the other person turn toward him, for him to realize that there is no flashlight casting that light, but a visor. The next moment, his legs are being kicked out from under him.

There’s a pain in his knees, but it’s usual. Reinhardt lunges forward and grabs, gets both hands around muscle and pulls. He drops the wrench, but they both hit the floor. He hears scraping metal but ignores it. All he has to do is squeeze. A cart is turned over as he’s feeling around for a neck, and tools pelt his back. Reinhardt pulls himself up, shakes the tools off, and feels pain explode across the side of his head. In the time it takes him to shake himself out of his daze, his grip on the burglar is loose enough that the man is able to move properly again. The next thing he knows, he’s staring down the barrel of a pulse rifle, the make of which he’s never seen.

For a moment, and not for the first time, he wonders if he’s going to die. Then the burglar lowers the gun.

“Wilhelm,” he says, “what are you doing here?” And Reinhardt, who is feeling too old for mysteries and intrigue, sweeps one arm out and closes a hand around and ankle. He pulls again. Back to the floor for them both. His other hand goes around a wrist, pinning hand and gun to the floor and immobilizing the other man. At least he thinks, but he’s still dazed and has only one wrist. A free hand comes up and punches him hard in the shoulder. No, not too hard. Almost… fondly. It’s enough to give him pause.

“You seem to have me at a disadvantage,” Reinhardt says, words slow and careful as he squints at the man pinned below him. The red light hurts his eye. “You know me, my name, but I don’t recall yours.”

“Just a soldier,” says the other man, then, “Please get off.”

Reinhardt pulls himself up, first hands and knees, then the rest. He’s slower than he would like. The burglar manages his recovery faster, on his feet while Reinhardt is still getting off his knees. He feels a pang of envy. Mask or no, the other man still has white hair, as little as Reinhardt can see it in the dim lighting, and carries himself in a way that suggest the weariness of age. Perhaps Brigitte is right. Maybe he is getting too old for this.

He shakes the thought out of his head as he gets to his feet, turning his head slightly so that the other man is in full view of his good eye. He’s familiar, but not so familiar. He carries himself with all the surety of a soldier, but also just ever so slightly relaxed, as if knowing few others could possibly measure up. It reminds Reinhardt, achingly, of Jack. However, Jack is dead. Reinhardt remembers the eulogy. Angela told him he’d spoken beautifully. He doesn’t want to think too much on this, spent months dwelling on it in a haze of misery when it first happened. First Ana, then Jack and Gabriel at once. Part of him wants to ask if this person knew them, but he pushes the desire down.

“So what is a soldier doing breaking into a garage?” he asks instead, arms crossing over his chest. Now that he has a better view of the man, the similarities are even more obvious. His heart aches with familiarity, but he has to be wrong. If he isn’t, if Jack is alive and here, that would mean he never died. That would mean Reinhardt mourned a friend who was fine, eulogized a pointless grave, that Jack didn’t even trust him enough to let him know he was okay. It would mean Reinhardt would have to be happy as well as angry and sad and hurt, and he cannot make room for all of those things in his heart right now. Even so, he’s about to ask, but then the soldier turns his back and gestures for him to follow. Reinhardt hums and trails after him, making a note of the bold, red ‘76’ on the back of his jacket.

The soldier leads him into a side room, and then a side room off that side room. Reinhardt feels his stomach sink, thinks back to Mari and hopes the dread is false. It’s just the sort of thing he’s always felt worried about confronting, wanting to be a courteous guest in the face of hospitality, but always so unwilling to look the other way. It was that unwillingness that saw him forcibly retired when other agents around him were allowed to continue work. His thoughts travel back to Ana, sadly. If he was too old to be out in the field, then how was she not?

When the soldier--and Reinhardt realizes now, from the number and from half-remembered articles, that this must be the Soldier:76 that skirmished with Helix Security--shines his visor into the room, the light lands on several crates branded with LumériCo’s logo. He jerks his head at the boxes and Reinhardt looks around for a crowbar and is unsurprised to find one leaning near the door they just walked through. It takes him no effort to crack open the first container.

“Those,” he says, “are not clean energy products.”

“I noticed,” says 76 dryly. Reinhardt draws himself up to his full height and glowers down at the other man. He’s unsure how well his bid to intimidate works. The visor is impassable.

“What is the meaning of this?” Soldier:76 says nothing, just leans in to get a better look at the guns, and Reinhardt is left to piece the information together himself.

“There have been rumors of criminals in the area being armed with more dangerous weaponry,” he says slowly. 76 hums softly and picks up a pistol with glowing stripes down the side of it’s barrel, then picks up a pre-filled clip that burns a cold blue. They match. He hands it to Reinhardt without a word, and Reinhardt takes it almost clumsily in comparison. He knows how to use a gun, but they all feel wrong in his hands. Even in service to Germany, all of his time was spent perfecting his movement and tactics in the Crusader armor. Guns were not an option. They were not the point of a Crusader. He unloads it and sets both back down in the foam slots they came from.

“They could not have known about this,” he says to 76, defensive of Mari, of Brigitte’s judge of character.

“Not all of them might, but if these guns are here, then someone has to be stashing them. Someone with access to this room.” They both look up when they hear the rattling noise of the garage door opening, then closing, as someone hisses at the loudness from the other room. “And here they come now.”

Reinhardt steps toward the door, stopped barely by Soldier:76 putting a hand on his chest. He moves quick, shutting the door they just came through and pressing his back to the wall on one side of it, pointing to Reinhardt and then to the other side. Reinhardt follows, presses himself as flat against the wall as he can, then looks over to 76 and smirks slightly. He points at the soldier, then at his own eyes with two fingers. Thankfully, the hint is taken and 76 presses two fingers to his temple. His visor dims just as a beam of light peeks out from under the crack at the bottom of the door.

The door creaks open slowly, casting more light into the room as the person who opened it takes a cursory glance around with the flashlight. Reinhardt closes his eyes hard and grits his teeth, resisting the urge to press his palm to his face. The lid! He’d forgotten to put the lid back on. He hears a series of curses as the person, another man by the sound of it, notices the tampered-with crate.

「Who in the fuck ?」 He’s in the door a moment later, stopping a foot away from the crates as he turns around slowly. Reinhardt is a hard man to miss. He is terrible at hiding. That their mystery gun runner tries to immediately bolt back out the door isn’t a surprise, but Soldier:76 kicks it closed and levels the rifle at the recent arrival, and Reinhardt wastes no time hauling him in by his shirt and pinning him to the wall by his elbows before he can try to reach for anything. The moment he’s secure, 76 hits the lights and Reinhardt has to blink to adjust. He feels muscle and bone protest as he tightens his grip, just in case. The man he’s pinning lets out a weak little groan until they both adjust to the sudden light and Reinhardt’s hold goes from crushing to merely tight.

They’re left staring at a wholly unremarkable man. Light brown, with short, dark hair, thick eyebrows, and slightly unkempt facial hair. He wouldn’t be out of place in the garage, but his clothes and watch are far too nice for a mechanic’s salary. He’s dressed more for a club than he is for a burglary.

“Must’ve stopped by on the way to somewhere else,” Soldier:76 murmurs under his breath. The man they have trapped starts panicking almost the moment he sees 76, which Reinhardt finds a little insulting, considering.

「Who are you?」 he asks, looking at Reinhardt.

“A better question is: Who are you?” Reinhardt peers at the other man, then follows his gaze back to the soldier.

「Oh shit, oh shit! You’re that fucking vigilante. Jesus Christ, what’re you doing here?」 In his grip, the burglar squirms and Reinhardt feels a prickle of irritation and squeezed the man’s elbows again. He hears a few swears in Spanish, but eventually they quiet with a wheeze. From his left side--his good side--he can hear a soft rumble of satisfaction.

「What,」 says Reinhardt, 「are you doing here?」

The story floods out quickly in the face of intimidation, and Reinhardt isn’t sure if it’s because he’s quite literally putting the squeeze on him or because Soldier:76 is apparently just that much more intimidating to the local criminal element. Most likely, he assures himself, it is both.

Their burglar’s name is Luis Ortega and he works for LumériCo. Under the direction of his boss, he’s been intimidating the employees of La Forja, using their backroom to store weapons that LumériCo have been buying and modifying under the table. He’s also been selling them to a small selection of radical anti-Omnic organizations based around various cities in Spain.

「Under orders,」 he wheezes, when Reinhardt gives him another good squeeze. 「I was doing it under orders!」

「Why would LumériCo go through the trouble of selling guns to anti-Omnic groups in Spain? They’re based in Mexico.」

Reinhardt stares. Ortega stares. Despite the mask, Soldier:76 manages to look offended by their presumptions. Instead of voicing his offence, he levels the barrel of his rifle at Ortega’s face, who whimpers even as Reinhardt takes a hand off the would-be gun dealer to lay it on the top of 76’s rifle. He pushes it down and away from Ortega’s face until 76 snatches it back from under his hand with a sharp, controlled jerk. The tip of his finger taps meaningfully against the trigger guard at an angle only Reinhardt can see, but he still frowns at the vigilante before shifting his attention. Ortega looks grateful for his restraint, but Reinhardt can’t help but think on the Spanish he just heard, nothing like his formal European. More like the sort that he heard when he was stationed in Watchpoint: Grand Mesa and travelling regularly into the American Southwest. It sounds like the Spanish he heard tossed back and forth between McCree and Reyes, when they were angry at each other and didn’t want as many people to know why.

「Answer the question」 he says, but Ortega just trembles his way halfway into a shrug.

「I don’t know! I just give out the guns!」 Reinhardt rolls his eyes and shakes him again, before turning back to Soldier:76, who’s tapping a finger on his gun.

“Knock him out. I don’t want him hearing this.” Soldier:76 pulls out a small dart gun. Reinhardt reaches a hand back and feels it pressed into his palm, takes a look at the readings on it to make sure the drug dosage was input correctly, before pressing it against Ortega’s neck and firing. The man goes limp almost immediately, and Reinhardt hands the gun back and sits Ortega down against a wall for now.

“What did you not want him to hear?”

“Numbani is a bastion of human-omnic relations. Low unemployment, low crime rates for the most part, and clean energy. They’ve made a lot of gains by giving Omnics the same treatment as humans.” Soldier:76 stares meaningfully at Reinhardt, who stares back, unblinking. It isn’t that he’s a fool by any measure, but news is always spotty on the road, and investigation was never really his forte. Still, even he has heard about LumériCo and their new plant in Mexico, the last in a long line of construction meant to give the entire country clean energy.

“You think they want to expand into Spain?”

“Makes enough sense,” says 76, and Reinhardt has to admit he’s right. The whole of Europe seems to be falling behind technologically, meter by meter, and most of the reason for that can probably be attributed to the restrictions levied onto Omnics across the continent. They make good workers and, unlike humans, do not need to sleep or eat when they feel particularly like committing themselves to a project. However, they refuse to share with nations that won’t grant them rights.

“It does,” he says agreeably. “I had heard the area had gotten more dangerous recently, but I didn’t think it would be the responsibility of a corporation-backed arms dealer.”

76 hums again and shifts his stance. Reinhardt looks at him and laughs softly. He could swear the man looks pleased.

“What’re you lookin’ at?”

“You,” Reinhardt says, shrugging. “I was thinking about how handsome you might look without your mask.”

Soldier:76 stares at him, then turns away and reaches a hand up to turn the brightness of his visor back up. “There’s more to this than just regular guns, and I’d rather not worry about him running off to warn anyone that I’m coming.”

Reinhardt waits for an elaboration but is met only with silence. It’s a little aggravating, but mostly Reinhardt is intrigued. Curiosity plucks at his mind, but he’s unsure of he want to follow the thread. He knows little about the vigilante he’s with, outside of some vague knowledge of things stolen from an old Overwatch facility, and those he seems to be putting to good use. All he has are his own speculations and desperate hopes. It’s a startling moment of clarity, that he doesn’t know if he wants those hopes confirmed. If Jack Morrison really is alive, is standing before him in a disguise that’s about as sturdy as a cardboard box… Reinhardt still isn’t sure if he’ll be happy his friend is alive, or angry that he didn’t think Reinhardt was worthy of making contact with.

“If," he says gently, “you are done being vague...”

“Can you take care of this?” asks 76, and Reinhardt draws his shoulders up and frowns. He’s not unused to being given grunt work, but the idea of being given it now of all times chafes badly on his ego. 76 seems to pick up on this, sighing harshly through his mask. Even so, Reinhardt finds himself kneeling down and assessing Ortega’s state, making sure his pulse is steady and his breathing is stable. There’s no honor to be found in dispatching an unarmed combatant.

“How long will he be out?”

“Not long. Two hours maybe. Long enough for me to take care of what I need to. Just stay here and keep an eye on him. See if you can’t get anymore information out of him.” Reinhardt cringes and turns on Soldier:76, who throws a hand up to placate. “Not like that.”

Reinhardt relaxes after that. Implied torture was one of the reasons that he had been so furious with the existence of Blackwatch, had been crushingly disappointed that someone had been sanctioning it. He picks Ortega up and carries him to the employee restroom, setting him down in the shower and closing the door. He props a chair against it and is about to fire a text off to Mari when he looks up to see Soldier:76 primed to leave. Reinhardt takes several large, brisk steps and clamps his hand down on 76’s shoulder. Almost immediately, he feels a hand close tightly around his wrist.

“What do you plan to do next?” He asks, ignoring the vice grip.

“Find the suppliers, destroy their stash, then destroy them. They need to learn they don’t run these streets or this city anymore.”

Street justice is something Reinhardt can get behind, both in his younger days and in the days following his retirement. Still, there’s something in Soldier:76’s voice that makes him think that the man doesn’t know the difference between an enemy combatant on a battlefield, and a civilian street criminal. Even if he were not a hands-on sort, he would still want to go with 76 to see justice done, and to make sure the other man doesn’t go overboard.

“I’m coming with you,” he says and watches as Soldier’s brow wrinkles at the top of his mask.

“You’re too noticeable,” he says after a moment of thought, and though Reinhardt has to concede on that point, he refuses to be dissuaded. He moves over to where his armor is laid out in preparation for tomorrow’s work. It’s functional, but barely. Brigitte has done an excellent job at keeping it running, but she’s hardly a miracle worker and it’s not as if they have the money or supplies to keep everything in tip-top condition. Part of him longs for the days of Overwatch’s budget for repairs. Truthfully, he’s lucky that the German government never bothered to come and retrieve it. The again, where would they have found another person that fit in it?

As much as he likes the protection of his armor, if he wants to be subtle, he certainly can’t go stomping around Toledo in it. Debating on how to go about this, he turns back to Soldier:76, expecting him to be gone or to be ready to protest. Instead, he’s simply standing at a different counter, examining his gun.

“A moment,” he says, and pulls off his sleeping clothes, reaching for the ballistic fabric jumpsuit that he usually wears under the armor. It’s simple to slide into after so many years, but when he looks up for a moment, he sees a red glow reflected on the wall in front of him. As much as he would love nothing more than to tease the soldier for staring, he would rather not risk the fall by distracting himself. He manages to get it up his arms and over his shoulders, leaving his back open while he reaches for the gauntlet that carries his shield generator. As always, he runs his fingers over the along the lion sculpted into the metal before he slips it on and starts strapping it in. When he feels the brush of fabric against his back, Reinhardt jumps slightly until the brush turns into a palm flattened out on his back.

“Relax,” says 76, “just zipping you up.”

“Ah. Thank you. It may not look like much, but it will protect me from small arms fire.” Once his zipper is up and 76 has folded and sealed the concealing flap all the way up his back, Reinhardt turns around.

“You’re too conspicuous,” is the first thing that 76 says, staring at him up and down. He doesn’t eye him for long, turns away sooner than not. He can’t be sure, but Reinhardt thinks that he might a little bashful, but he just laughs and puts his other arm on just in case he needs it.

“Your visor glows, my friend, and this will be as far as I arm myself.” He reaches for his rocket hammer, then thinks better of it and drops his hand. As a weapon, it takes a certain amount of delicacy to wield against unarmored targets, made as it was for crushing metal and circuits. Using it on targets that were barely armored, or not armored at all, was something that happened often during his time on the field. The aftermath was always mess. People reduced to so much bloody pulp and bone. He doesn’t have much of a desire to see a sight like that tonight. When he turns again, Soldier:76 had an eyebrow raised high enough that Reinhardt can see it peek out from under his visor.

“Don’t worry,” he says, clapping his hand on the other man’s back hard enough to make him stumble forward with a grunt of pain. Once, it might have been part forgetfulness and part camaraderie, but Reinhardt has long since gotten to know his own strength. He pulls back, eyes the other man and his rifle, and though he can find no fault in the logic of going after armed assailants while armed yourself, he feels somehow that the playing field isn’t even. That is, as he’s come to know, how it usually is regardless.

“Just be careful of who you point your weapon at,” he says, and Soldier:76 snorts and turns away.

“Let’s get moving. LumériCo isn’t going to take care of itself.”

“Lead the way,” says Reinhardt, and bows slightly. The way Soldier:76 rears back in almost affront is worth it. They leave out the back, exiting into an alleyway and only stopping so that Soldier:76 can pick up a small, black bag near the door.

+++

For the most part, they move down back roads and alleys, avoiding main roads because they aren’t exactly the picture of subtlety. Thankfully, there are barely any people out, but Soldier:76 looks to the roofs often, like he’d rather be running around atop squat buildings with less of a chance of being seen. It was a tactic he’d learned ages ago from one of his fellow recruits in the S.E.P: Everyone is always so preoccupied with their lives on the ground that hardly anyone ever stops to look up. With Reinhardt with him, he can’t take advantage of that. The other man is far too heavy to be jumping from roof to roof, armor or no. Reinhardt being here presents a whole host of issues for Soldier:76. He presents a whole host of issues for Jack , the man that 76 left behind, but whose mindset keeps plucking at the back of his head.

Thankfully, the nightlife of Toledo isn’t centered around where they’re going, right up against the Rio Tajo. It’s seen development along the south bank over the last few decades, mostly warehouses that use the river to move supplies to places on the north bank faster than the bridges. It’s a good route for minor shipping but 76 can see why LumériCo would have scumbags like Ortega use it to ferry their illegal arms into the city proper.

He’s been doing recon on these buildings for weeks. This isn’t like the operations LumériCo had going down in Dorado, where they were getting rogue Los Muertos gang members to move their product around, an idea as stupid as it was smart. On one hand, there’s a plausible deniability that comes with working with established criminals whose word would never stand up to that of a reputable corporation, as well as the security of knowing they would come out on top. On the other hand, Los Muertos had been startlingly incompetent and unwilling to be even slightly subtle. Then again, he thinks, it’s hard to demand subtlety from people with UV tattoos.

The operation here is more careful. 76 has seen multiple people wandering in and out of the warehouses, all dressed in black tactical gear. From what he had gotten from reconnaissance, they all seemed to be armed with stun batons and small arms, but 76 wouldn’t put it past them to dip into their own product if the need arose. He watches quietly from just around the corner about a block from the warehouse, using his visor to track their movements and get more details in their rotation. If his previous attempts at recon have shown him anything, it’s that there’s usually about fifteen guards at the warehouse, spread across the building.

“What are they doing,” says Reinhardt from behind him, and Jack almost jumps out of his skin and nudges back into him, almost tells Reinhardt not to scare him like that. He has to swallow down the soft laugh that wants to come out. It speaks to how much his subconscious betrays him, that even after the fall of Overwatch, he still trusts Reinhardt enough not to keep him on radar as a threat. He scowls instead of responding, and Reinhardt nudges him, still looking for an answer.

“Patrolling the perimeter,” he says. “One at each corner and one at the door. There should be another ten inside, five walking the floor. The other five are probably on break.” He remembers having taken a look into the building though the high windows once before, seeing them playing cards with bored faces. With Reinhardt here, he can’t help but think back to the opening days of Overwatch, playing with Ana, Gabriel, Reinhardt and Torbjörn while they waited for orders. He turns his head back just enough to look at Reinhardt out of the corner of his eyes. Reinhardt was always the dealer in those games, poker face far too terrible to present a challenge, and they had all lost to Torbjörn more often than not, his near-constant scowl masking his intentions. Reinhardt looks down at him and Jack turns himself back to the task at hand and forces himself to pay closer attention.

They wait where they are for an hour, and the guard changes slowly and with large gaps between whenever someone checks their watch. They do so every fifteen or thirty minutes, rotating the guard consistently. Behind him, he can feel Reinhardt shift and shift and shift some more. Soldier:76 reaches back and settles a hand on his thigh, squeezing firmly enough that a lesser man would have been in pain. Reinhardt just inhales sharply and tenses, and Jack has to make a note of what he’s doing before he loosens his grip. That move was far too familiar and he can feel his face heat in response. Even so, part of him is gratified by how responsive Reinhardt is to a firm hand after all these years, likes the way that Reinhardt’s thigh felt in his hand.

The mission. Right, the mission.

“Stop moving.”

“Apologies.” He hears from behind him, the voice a low mumble, and Reinhardt stills entirely.

“Good… Good man.” Jack pats his thigh and moves his hand back to the dial on on his visor, trying not to think too hard about the whole thing. He can hear Reinhardt’s breath level out behind him. While they wait a little longer, the situation hardly changes.

“We could take them,” 76 says after a moment, pulling his pulse rifle off his back. They might be more organized that Los Muertos, but that clearly doesn’t count for much. It certainly doesn’t mean they match his skill or Reinhardt’s. “Try to be a little quiet at first.”

He has no illusions that they’ll be able to keep to the stealthy approach for long. His gun is loud, his visor glows, and he has Reinhardt with him. The man has never been able to get a handle on subtlely, though that might be due to being roughly the size of a barn and about as loud as a jet engine. The distance between their hiding spot and the warehouse is a good forty-meter sprint into open courtyard and they only make it about halfway before being spotted.

Jack stops dead in his tracks and launches himself behind Reinhardt, who throws up his barrier as soon as he sees LumériCo’s guards lift their guns. Jack can hear the steady rain of ‘ thoomp thoomp thoomp ’ as bullets are stopped dead in their tracks. He checks the charge on his visor and swears. It still needs a little more time to charge up, but for now he’s working under his own steam. He points and shoots, aiming for the gaps in the armor joints. One guard goes down with a bullet wound to the shoulder. Another takes a nasty shot to the leg. By the time his combat visor lets him know it’s ready with a crackling hum, he can see Reinhardt’s barrier start to crack at the edges under the barrage.

That shouldn’t be happening this soon, he thinks, not just from small arms fire.

“It’s giving out!” Reinhardt yells. “Be ready to find cover!”

76 can see more personnel pouring out of the building, can see one run back in as his co-worker reaches for him and yells. He doesn’t let him yell for long, takes advantage of the distraction to get him in the back of the neck as he turns to follow.

“Hold the line! I’m activating the tactical visor!”

“The what ?”

It doesn’t last longer than a few seconds once he depresses the button at his temple. Each target is highlighted in a square and each one goes down as his bullets seem to auto-target the weak points in their body armor. It barely takes a minute and they’re all down on the ground, either groaning and trying to press their hands to their wounds, or dead. He doesn’t take much pleasure in it, but winning here means that people elsewhere are safer, and that he gets to live to fight another day. He can’t say he’s always enjoyed being alive, but he’s always liked to win. There’s a flicker in front of him and his world becomes a little darker in the absence of Reinhart’s shield.

“Is that all?”

“Should be. There’s one more in the building, but that shouldn’t be a probl--”

They hear the remaining guard before they see him. It’s impossible not to. When they turn to look at him, he’s carrying a long rifle that crackles at the tip. Reinhardt’s barrier goes up before 76 lifts his gun, but he doesn’t fire before the guard. He shoots through the shield and hits the guard in the head, shattering though his helmet. At the same time, he hears a sound like a hammer being driven through tempered glass, and a sharp bark of pain from his side. The regret he feels is sudden and sharp. He never should have let Reinhardt come.

Jack isn’t surprised that Reinhardt’s barrier is still up, even with the hole that’s been punched through it. He hasn’t flinched and let it down to check his wound. The only hint of distraction from him is how his eyes trail down to look at the neat, golf ball-sized hole punched into his shield.

So that’s what LumériCo’s been working on…

Another smothered noise of pain is what derails his thought process, and Jack looks up at Reinhardt’s grit teeth with a furrowed brow, then down to his thigh. The gash there looks bad, wide and deep, like Reinhardt should consider himself lucky not to be missing a chunk. Whatever the hell kind of bullet that gun shot punched right through Reinhardt’s barrier, and Jack is relieved that the last guard was such a terrible shot. He doesn’t want to think of the kind of damage a direct hit would have done. He’s seen photon projectiles work their way through Reinhardt’s shield if they were travelling slow enough to shake the kinetic properties of the barrier. Something travelling at bullet speed shouldn’t have been able to get through, yet…

Reinhardt swears enough to turn the air blue, provided the air in Spain understood German. Jack kneels down to inspect the damage and can’t stop himself from wincing behind the mask. The bullet, whatever the hell it was, sliced clean through the protective layer, burning through fabric as well as the impact gel underneath. Usually meant to handle small arms fire, it’s now spilling out and melting from the heat, dripping into the open wound. Jack swears, pulling out a knife and a biotic field emitter.

“Drop the barrier.”

“No. We do not know if more are on the way and I refuse to leave you vulnerable.”

“We’re lit up like a goddam Christmas tree,” Jack hisses. “Drop the barrier and move back so I can treat you.”

Reinhardt stares him down. Jack stares back, stubborn and better at it because he knows Reinhardt can’t see when he blinks. Unstoppable force meets immovable object. He growls low under his breath and tucks the knife away, throwing the emitter down before turning and sprinting toward the warehouse. He feels Reinhardt’s hand brush his sleeve as the man lurches forward and tries to stop him, but even without a leg wound to account for, he’s always been the faster one out of the two of them. All he has to do is put on a burst of speed and he’s out of grabbing range. He keeps moving even when he hears a noise of frustration behind him.

“Have something to do.”

Before, when he was a standard soldier (or at least as standard as he could be after all the enhancements), Jack would have shown some kindness or mercy. Soldier:76 merely runs around or jumps over the bodies of still struggling guards. He’ll catch hell from Reinhardt for it later, but right now he’s filled with the burning need to know .

What kind of weapon can punch a hole through a Crusader’s shield? Why would anyone need to? Why the hell would LumériCo have them? Barriers aren’t Omnic technology, so why are they going around making weapons that can break through them?

It doesn’t take him as long as usual to scan through the crates, and he finds exactly what he expects: guns, and lots of them. They all look similar to the ones that fired on Reinhardt, mostly pistols and rifles. He takes a moment to look at the rows and rows of boxes, then slings the bag he brought with him off his back and sets it on the floor, opening it and pulling out the implosive charges he brought to finish the job. He sets them quickly and carefully, knowing that they can’t possibly have much time before someone comes to investigate. The walk to each placement site is filled with silence that he uses to listen for any gunfire from outside. It’s careful work, but he’s satisfied with it once he’s finished. With any luck, the force from these will render all of the guns unusable scrap metal.

He’s taking one last walk around, making sure he’s followed the instructions right as far as spacing goes, when he spots the open box near the door. It’s missing a rifle, the one the final guard must have taken when he tried to make a last stand, but nestled in foam is a much smaller gun. It’s only smaller because it’s a handgun, but it looks like a hand cannon, and Jack recognizes it as being an upgraded version of what the guards were armed with, better than the gun they found in the box at La Forja. It’s sleek and shiny and deadly, and it comes with three clips. Soldier:76 picks it up and it feels as natural in his hands as all guns do. He considers his current sidearm as he looks at it.

Jack thinks of Reinhardt, outside and injured, painfully unwilling to give up the mantle of Crusader knight and hero. He thinks of Reinhardt’s forced retirement and the way he railed against it. Thinks of how his last few years in Overwatch were filled with no small amount of criticism as the organization began to stretch itself thin and meddle with events they hardly understood the nuances of, for people in power who couldn’t have cared less. Without Reinhardt there, they’d fallen too easily into following orders with little consideration. Doing what was right became secondary. Overwatch had rotted from the inside out after he’d left.

Convenient that he was out of it when it all went to shit, isn’t it?

The worst parts of himself always sound raspy and mechanical, like smoke and shadow. The same parts that make him jump at every noise and keep close eyes on his friends for all the wrong reasons. He doesn’t entirely believe that Reinhardt had anything to do with the fall of Overwatch, but a part of him believes it just enough.

It only takes a second to slip the pistol inside the bag with the spare clips, to slip the bag onto his back and sprint back toward the door.

The detonator is in his hand by the time he makes it out of the warehouse, only to find a series of bloody drag marks leading into the biotic field. While he was in there planting charges to crush the warehouse into a singularity of scrap, Reinhardt was apparently trying to play medic. The wound on his leg looks like it’s stabilized, still bleeding but no longer so profusely. He’s undoubtedly gotten blood on the floor, but with how much there is, it’ll hardly matter. It’s probably mingled with the rest by now.

“What’s the body count?”

“Eight dead. Seven wounded and currently stabilizing.”

“And you?”

“I will live,” says Reinhardt. Jack bristles at that, surprises himself with the force of his irritation that Reinhardt would dismiss a wound so casually. He does the same, it’s true, but that’s different . He was built to take punishment as well as deal it out. That was the point of the Soldier Enhancement Program.

“C’mon,” he says, “let’s get you some place safe. I’ll patch you up.”

He should probably find it in him to be less insulted by the slightly wary look Reinhardt gives him, since the man probably hasn’t figured him out yet and just saw him mow down over a dozen people. A few years alone has made it more difficult to understand people than before, and it’s not like he has a leg to stand on. The gun he stole from that warehouse would more than justify Reinhardt’s caution. He’s the last person who should be giving anyone grief about paranoia.

“Just trust me,” he says, and it sounds stupid to his own ears.

Yes, trust me. Not like I was debating the likelihood of your betrayal a few minutes ago. Not like I stole a barrier shattering device just in case. Stupid.

His thoughts are interrupted before he can dig himself any deeper into an argument with himself. Reinhardt doesn’t so much take his free hand as he does envelope it entirely in his own. Jack isn’t sure if it’s because of the armor, but the grip is warm. It doesn’t help the guilt that he feels burning a hole from his chest to his toes. Jack slips his hand out of Reinhardt’s and settles it around the other man’s waist, coaxing him away from the warehouse.

“And what of the weapons?”

“Don’t worry about ‘em,” says Jack, and flicks the cap back on the detonator so he can press the button. Behind them, the building explodes and they both turn their heads to watch.

For a moment, everything seems to hang in the air. Pieces of the roof float several feet from their original places. Walls pause halfway to blown out. Deeper in the explosion, metal crates turn red hot. It’s as if someone has hit the pause button on an action movie.

Then hit play.

Instead of continuing outward, there’s an electrical hum, followed by cacophony as everything is suddenly sucked violently inward and much, much closer than it was before. Everything crunches together like so much trash in a compactor.

“Graviton demolition charges. Borrowed from the Russian Special Forces.”

“ Borrowed, ” says Reinhardt, raising his eyebrow. Jack laughs low and urges him forward again. In an hour, all that will be left of that warehouse is a misshapen ball of ash and cooling metal.  By that time, he and Reinhardt will be tucked away in Soldier:76’s latest hideout.

+++

Reinhardt doesn’t make it to Soldier:76’s safehouse entirely conscious. His legs propel him ever forward, but some of his weight is shifted wrong and he’s being being mostly propped up by the man on his right side. He can feel a wetness in his shoe that’s especially obvious whenever it hits the ground. If his hearing was better, he could probably hear the sound of his foot squishing into the absorbed blood. A quick look down and behind reassures him that he isn’t leaving any bloody footprints.

Heh. Sturdy boots, he thinks to himself. Only, he must have said it out loud, because a moment later he feels a gloved hand lightly patting at his face.

“Stay with me, Reinhardt. Stay awake. I can’t carry you back on my own.”

His voice sounds like sandpaper being put through a blender , Reinhardt thinks. But in a nice way.

There’s a thick silence that follows that thought, which makes him think he may have said out loud again what he thought was in his head. He’s starting to think that maybe Torbjörn was right, that having his armor on so often really did slow his brain down. He stumbles, and his thigh, nearly numb, throbs with pain. Soldier:76 adjusts quickly, compensating by taking a little more of his weight, and Reinhardt feels infinitely more grateful for the support.

“Almost there. Stay with me. Stay with me…”

76 eventually leads him through a maze of side streets, but different from the ones they took when they left La Forja. The alleys here are so narrow that Reinhardt’s shoulders scrape the brick on either side, and eventually Soldier:76 has to slot them up against a wall and carefully slide himself and Reinhardt down the alley sideways until it broadens out just enough at a dead end for a door. 76 unlocks it with a pin number that is more recognizable to Reinhardt by sound, though he can’t see the numbers and doesn’t have the presence of mind to focus on it right now.

For a man who was so stoic when they met, Soldier:76 is surprisingly soft once he’s out of the open.  He walks Reinhardt to a mattress on the floor that’s made up as well as a bed in a nearly empty room can be. It even has hospital corners. Reinhardt sits himself down carefully and tries to find it in him to tell the other man that he’s quite familiar with blood loss. His familiarity with it doesn’t matter in the face of physicality, of how he feels just a little light headed. Or maybe a lot. Still, 76 is gone before he can give his reassurances, and Reinhardt lays himself down on the bed properly and seriously considers going to sleep.

When Soldier:76 comes back, it’s with a surgical tray full of basic medical supplies and another biotic field emitter. The latter will take care of most anything, but Reinhardt knows the wound needs to be cleaned out and prepared for the healing process. He isn’t looking forward to it. He can’t quite see how 76 is trying to start, so he props himself up on his elbows and watches as the man pulls back the ruined fabric of his undersuit enough to get at the wound a little more easily. The throbs of pain in his leg turn sharp as 76 plucks hardened impact gel out of the gash with a pair of tweezers before looking up at Reinhardt and reaching for the waistband of his pants. Reinhardt wiggles back a little, suddenly feeling foolish about his helplessness.

“Ah, that’s quite alright. I have it.” He sits up further and makes it a point not to pay any attention to the amused tilt of Soldier:76’s head.

It’s a pain-filled ordeal, freeing his legs from his pants. Whatever pieces of gel that weren’t pulled out before come out when he slowly pushes the fabric down his legs. He gets it all the way down to the ankles before his back protests being bent that far forward, and his bad leg protests being made to bend at all. 76 furrows his brow and reaches down, taking the pants off Reinhardt’s ankles and taking a look at the hole in them before dropping them off to the side. Reinhardt finds himself glad that he’s wearing one of his nicer pairs of trunks today, rather than the threadbare ones.

“Christ...”

“Bad?”

“Could be worse,” says 76, and starts to clean the wound with saline and several pads of gauze. Once it’s up to his standards, he searches it in the dim light of his visor for more impact gel and, finding none he can handle presently, reaches for the emitter and taps the button on top before dropping it next to Reinhardt on the bed. The relief for Reinhardt is almost immediate, and he sighs and whispers a ‘thank you’ before curling his fingers around the canister to keep it close. 76 leaves again for a moment, but Reinhardt isn’t sure how long it is. He comes back with bottles of water and Reinhardt takes one from his hand and squeezes it into his mouth eagerly as 76 chuckles and takes his at a more leisurely pace.

“You make a very good nurse,” Reinhardt says.

“Let’s see if you’ll still say that when we’re done.” 76 reaches for more damp gauze, cleaning out the dirt and picking out more impact gel as the biotic healing process pushes the rest of the debris out of the wound. Reinhardt looks down at his wound and then away again. Where the bullet grazed him looks like so much charred meat, and the gash is larger than he thought. He isn’t looking forward to parting from the biotic field, to dealing with how long it might take to heal without the assistance of one. Angela isn’t due in Gibraltar for another week, and it’s uncertain if she even intends to stay, but he isn’t looking forward to the lecture he’s certain to get from her. Thinking about that is less enjoyable than what’s in front of him, and as soon as Soldier:76 has bandaged up his leg, Reinhardt smiles and reaches down to cup the other man’s face between two large hands.

“And do I get to know the identity of my rescuer?”

Soldier:76 freezes where he is, halfway through gathering up the first-aid supplies, then continues with an irritated grumble. His motions are sharper now, a little more jerky. Reinhardt wonders if he’s done something wrong, but then again, he must have for something like this to happen between them. Even so, slowly but surely, Reinhardt watches as pink bleeds up past the top of Soldier:76’s visor. He can’t help the soft laughter, watches with amusement as 76 stomps over to him and huffs, putting his now bare hand over Reinhardt’s mouth to muffle it. All Reinhardt does is pull it off and hold it in his hand as 76--as Jack --sighs.

“You blush so easily still, Jack,” Reinhardt says, teasing. Now that he knows, now that he’s sure that all this familiarity was not just his mind tricking him into seeing things he only hoped were true, he doesn’t quite know what to feel. It is a lot, the anger and sadness, the happiness and feeling of betrayal. It is too much for right now, for this moment, so Reinhardt sets it aside for the time being and brushes his lips across Jack’s knuckles.

“Guess the jig is up, huh?” Morrison pulls the mask off the lower half of his face then, after some hesitation, his visor. He sets them both down on a crate next to the bed that’s been repurposed into an end table. Reinhardt just smiles wider.

“There it is,” he murmurs, almost reverent. "That's the face I fell in love with.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a pretty long fic I wrote longhand in a notebook in my spare time. It took a while to write up, but I'm pretty satisfied with it's length and how it transferred from paper to computer. Anything 「Bracketed like this」is a conversation that's taking place in a language other than English, usually the official language of the character or country.


	2. Cardinal Morality

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Toledo had simply lead to an argument, but the longer he thinks about it, the worse Jack feels about mistrusting a friend. After meeting Ana in Egypt and getting a lecture on his paranoia, he makes his way to Watchpoint: Gibraltar to apologize and go on the first date he's been on in years. Naturally, he makes a fool of himself.
> 
> Reinhardt is considering what he should go about the still-secret comeback of his long dead friend and sometimes-lover. Gibraltar and proper medical care does him well, and so does a date with Jack Morrison himself. When Jack comes back from supposedly leaving after their date with a series of claw marks on his side, Reinhardt gives him some basic medical attention to keep him 'dead' in the eyes of their friends.
> 
> Jack wants more than just medical attention.

Gibraltar is just as sunny and warm as he remembers and it does him good to be here. The activity of the last few days--mild in his case, on Angela’s orders--has helped him keep his mind off his run-in with Jack in Toledo. Just thinking about it makes him feel a combination of happiness and bitterness, and it’s hard to decide which one he leans toward more. He isn’t even allowed to let anyone know that Jack is alive. It had been made very clear to him before they parted ways that there was a reason that Jack kept himself dead in the public eye. Without knowing who took down Overwatch, he couldn’t risk exposing himself to people he didn’t trust. It had cut him deeply to realize that he was counted among those. Now, weeks later, it still stings.

Reinhardt had argued that Overwatch had taken care of itself by continuing to operate the way it had rather than changing in response to the concerns of the global populace. The declassification of Blackwatch certainly hadn’t helped matters. Jack may have been right on some things, that maybe there was someone that had sabotaged Overwatch from the inside, but they had argued regardless. Reinhardt admits to himself now that they could have parted on better terms, but alas.

He leans back in a chair just outside the hangar of the Watchpoint, paying little attention as it creaks underneath him. Many of the chairs here had been reinforced to bear his weight over time. He enjoys the sun and relaxation afforded to him in the calm before the storm. It gives him more than enough time to think.

+++

It gnaws at Jack, the hurt on Reinhardt’s face that came with the realization that he was suspect. He lets it eat at him all through Spain, down into Algeria, across Libya and into Egypt, where he finds a few old friends. Reaper--and Jack has to correct and recorrect himself, refuses to call that _thing_ Gabriel, even in his own head--and Ana. He won’t say it isn’t a relief to find her alive, that it isn’t nice to have her company again. They are two of a feather in their false deaths. He’s happy she’s on his side.

Well, mostly on his side.

In a cafe in Cairo, she’s giving him the most severe look as she stirs honey into her tea, quite pointedly not happy with how he handled the situation with Reinhardt. She takes a sip, then stares at him over the rim of the cup.

“Really,” she says to him, “of all the people to be suspicious of, our noble lionheart?”

He feels graceless next to her, picking up his small cup of Turkish coffee with fingers that feel too large.

“It would fit. He has motive.”

Ana’s grip goes tight around her cup and she sets it down on the saucer, eye closed in thought. After seeing what Reaper was, who Reaper was, the idea that one of their closest friends could betray them doesn’t seem so far-fetched. Still, when she opens her eye, it’s to raise a single eyebrow at him. Ana may not be much older than him, but there is something about being around her that makes him feel like a rookie again. Suddenly, his theory seems like so much trash; but Jack has always been stubborn, and he clings to it even though part of him doesn’t want to.

“He was pretty upset about being retired,” Jack argues, “and forcibly too. You can’t think he wouldn’t still be raw over that.”

“I am hardly saying he wasn’t, just that there is no reason he would throw away all the good we did in Overwatch for a reason that is so selfish.”

“We took away his chances for honor and glory, all that knightly stuff he preaches about,” says Jack, and resists the urge to snort. When he was younger, he had found the archaic knight routine almost charming, but politics and now vigilantism have made him cynical. Now it all seem so silly.

“That was practically the thing he lived for, and we let them take it away from him. I wouldn’t blame him for holding a grudge.”

Ana’s one good eye narrows, and her glare has lost none of it’s power despite the loss of the other. Jack’s eyesight is fairly terrible without the visor, and he does need to wear glasses, but even he can see when he’s well and truly stepped in it.

“This isn’t like you, Jack.”

“I’ve changed.”

“It’s like you’ve completely forgotten Eichenwalde.”

Jack feels the guilt hit him like a sucker punch, because that’s what it is, and he can’t say he doesn’t deserve it.

Eichenwalde. How the hell could he have forgotten Eichenwalde? Reinhardt had been a wreck after that pyrrhic victory. The loss of his comrades nearly destroyed him. For months, he had functioned more mechanically than even an omnic would, continuing his missions because he needed to, because there was a war on and he couldn’t afford to quit, but it had taken him so long to go back to the cheerful man they’d met before the taskforce was first assembled. On the battlefield, he was functional, but at the base he had been as statue in a cemetery: silent and sad.

“You remember now, don’t you? It took him months to even smile again, and I’m not convinced he ever recovered from that loss.”

“Shit...” Ana stares at him like he is a pathetically broken thing. He knows she pities his paranoia, what Gabe’s betrayal and Overwatch’s downfall have left him with. Part of him is glad that he even has someone to do that right now, but he wishes she would be less obvious about it.

“He stayed with us,” she continues. “He could have left and gone to help the other Crusaders. He could have died with them. But he stayed because we asked him to. Remember that.”

Jack holds his cup a little tighter, more for warmth than anything. As of late, it seems he’s just getting colder and colder.

“Are you going to respond to the recall,” he asks, changing the subject.

“I am not sure. I stayed dead for a reason, after all. Either way, there is something I need to do before I go with you,” she says, and gives him a wry, sad smile. “I’m afraid I’ve been a terrible mother, Jack.”

\---

Ana parts with him in Egypt, determined to meet with Fareeha and apologise for her long absence.

“I told her I was alive,” she tells him on their way to her train station. “I could trust her to let me have my peace, even if it meant I couldn’t be near.”

Jack understands what she means right away. If they’d known she was alive, if they’d brought her back from that mission, the UN would have kept her in the field and let the weight of the dead keep piling up on her shoulders. With Reinhardt retired and Gabriel too busy with Blackwatch to care about much else, he would have folded to their demands just to keep someone familiar close. She would have as well, not willing to leave her family unprotected. Running really was her only option, he knows that now and cannot blame her for it. Still, it’s sad to watch her walk away when he’s just found her.

For a while, he is at a loss for what to do, what small cause he should devote himself to while he waits for new leads to surface in his investigation. He spends a week trekking back through North Africa, even detouring to Morocco just to prolong the inevitable. Gibraltar is a skip and a hop away from where he is, and after wasting more time than necessary and drinking more mint tea than he ever has in his life, Jack books a trip on the ferry from Tangier to Gibraltar.

He spends the whole trip avoiding prolonged eye contact with everyone on the ship, a baseball cap obscuring most of his features. He’s aged since his heyday as the poster boy for Overwatch, and his mask keeps him from being recognized by the authorities, but the scars are a distinguishing feature that no one would soon forget upon seeing them. The journey is as achingly familiar as he hoped it wouldn’t be. When he goes up on deck, the air is warm and the sun is as present as his loneliness. He refuses to dwell on his mood, instead descending below deck to drown himself in more tea once he gets tired of the fresh air and almost spitefully good weather.

Everyone below deck seems to be either silently entertained by technology or enjoying a conversation with a travel companion. He hears pieces of conversation in English, Spanish and Arabic, the latter two of which he knows enough of to eavesdrop on. A few people are speaking Tamazight, which he doesn’t understand at all, and the fact that he can’t tell what they’re talking about unnerves the part of him that sees a potential assassin in every brief look thrown his way.

Jack sets himself in a corner and tries not to think too hard about how he doesn’t have any company, any partner for conversation. He doesn’t even have a phone to use, wouldn’t even if he had. He wants to keep an eye on every single person in this room, just in case, even if he doesn’t want to talk to them. The last thing he needs is to strike up a conversation and have someone draw attention to the innocuous black duffel back he has settled on the seat next to him.

When he started his vigilante thing, his ‘quest’ as Reinhardt had called it, he promised himself he wouldn't get attached to anything he used. Possessions would only be tools for him to use in his unending war. In the end, all that reassurance hadn’t mattered. He had a preferred uniform within a week, and after that smash-and-grab job at Grand Mesa, he’d put together a kit he liked far too much to part with. It’s the same one that he has disassembled in the bag at his feet, tucked under civilian clothes.

Unbidden, though not unwanted, his mind calls up the memory of Reinhardt in that cramped Toledo safehouse, before they got into the argument that soured their reunion more than faking his death already did. Reinhardt had looked at him, dragged his eyes up and down Jack’s uniform before laughing and pressing their mouths together, hand firm on the back of his head. He’d murmured in-between kisses about Jack’s flair for the dramatic, and Jack had laughed back.

 _Rich_ _coming from a man who travels the countryside playing at being a knight._

He shakes himself out of the memory before he can let it distract him, before he can dwell on it further, and takes himself to the in-ship cafe for yet another cup of tea.

\---

It’s night by the time Soldier:76 arrives at Gibraltar, not because the ferry took so much time or because he got on the latest one, but out of personal preference. Gibraltar had been one of the Watchpoints he’d crossed off early when he was looking at places where he could breach security and resupply at. Getting past Winston--who the UN had ceded the Watchpoint to as a living space--and Athena would have been too much of a hassle. If Winston didn’t recognize him right off with his superior senses, Athena would have immediately upon a chance scan. Even with her personal data separate from Overwatch’s official information archives, Jack knows she’d never delete an agent from her memory banks. Winston had told him on more than one occasion that she was quite sentimental.

If he was honest with himself, Jack would admit that Winston being cooped up here after all he’s done for the world rankles him just a bit, but then he reminds himself that it’s not his business anymore. Winston is as much a suspect as anyone. Athena especially, given her history.

Jack waits ‘til daybreak in a variety of parks and public spaces, wasting some time in a library brushing up on his Spanish until the sun starts to rise. Then he wastes more time by getting breakfast and considering whether or not what he’s come here to do merits a gift. A peace offering.  He finds finds a local shuttle service by browsing a public information terminal, and when his driver shows up in a small red truck, Jack pays her extra just to keep the ride quiet. Being a mysterious man who’s asked to be driven to a derelict Watchpoint is not the most inconspicuous thing he’s done, but his driver doesn’t ask any questions.

When they arrive, it’s open and shut. Jack steps out and raps twice on the metal frame. The driver takes that as her cue to leave, probably thinking a little about the large sum of money gained for such a simple favor. Hopefully not too much. He stands several yards away from the Watchpoint, hidden behind a small cluster of rocks and hoping that the cameras are still in the same position he remembers and can’t see him. Gibraltar isn’t a Watchpoint he’s familiar enough with to get around security, and after what prompted the recall, he’s sure that surveillance has been strengthened. The last thing he wants is to be caught and dragged into whatever daydreams Winston has for this recall, regardless of Reinhardt’s optimism. Sullenly, he sits in his hiding place until he hears a vehicle coming up the road.

Even though it feels a little ridiculous, Jack pulls his mask out quickly from his duffle, placing it over his face with a slight feeling of relief as the world sharpens. He can see better with it on, isn’t resigned to squinting all the time, even though it tints the world red in exchange. His eyesight hasn’t been the best since the explosion at the Switzerland headquarters, and while it’s been steadily getting worse, he hardly notices with the visor on.

The vehicle stops not far from the rock he’s ducked behind, door opening and someone stepping out of the car.

“Jack,” says Reinhardt from the other side of his rock, “I know you’re here.”

For a moment, and in spite of his age, Jack feels childish and petulant. Reinhardt sounds amused and somewhat smug, as if he knew this was going to happen.

“No I’m not,” says Jack, and Reinhardt’s soft chuckle morphs into a full blown guffaw, loud enough to make him wince and feel suddenly exposed. He pops his head up from behind his cover just so he can glare at Reinhardt, not that it’ll convey much with his visor on, then ducks back down. Moments later, he sees a shadow blocking the light from above him and turns to find Reinhardt standing behind him with a smile on his face, silhouetted by the sun.

Jack’s long since taken out and reassembled his heavy pulse rifle, and while he’d mostly been holding onto it as a safety measure rather than with the intention of shooting anyone, he has to resist the urge to tighten his grip on it. Instead, he hits the safety and stands, brushing the dirt off his knees with one hand, rifle aimed down at his side. He’s nearly knocked to the ground by an enthusiastic clap on his back and a brash laugh that’s barely softer than the first one.

“I did not think you would come! Ana mentioned seeing you in Egypt, but I had told her I doubted you would come here. I suppose I’ve lost our bet now.”

“She came back? You saw her?”

“She contacted me once she met with Fareeha in France. A few issues came up at her previous job, guarding one of the isolated God Machines, but she’s on a new assignment in Avignon,” he says. “We talked for a while.”

Jack waits silently for more details, and when none look to be forthcoming, frowns mostly to himself. Reinhardt is so well-connected with people even now, though not in the usual sense. No higher-up would go through much to do a favor for an old soldier, but Reinhardt has close friends and keeps them there. It’s stupid for Jack to envy that. He chose to play dead, to go at it alone. Ana-- Well, Fareeha was her kid. That was different. _Is_ different.

Helix works just about everywhere, but he’s not sure Fareeha ever cared to move out of Egypt. After Ana died, he felt too ashamed of having left her behind to keep regular contact. Which God Machine had they quarantined in France again? They’d locked up so many that he has trouble remembering.

“Must’ve been a helluva talk,” Jack says, back of his mind whirling.

“It was,” he says noncommittally, and Jack has a feeling that it may have went a little better than their reunion, but probably not by much. There are, after all, only so many friends who can return from the dead without having told you they were alive. He wonders if there’s any way he can convince Reinhardt that he isn’t the problem. He wonders if Reinhardt would even believe him if he said that. When he looks up at the man again, he finds a patient smile directed at him, rubs the back of his neck awkwardly as a result.

“Have you come to stay?” Reinhardt asks. Jack finds himself wishing, not for the first time, that his old friend was a little less straight-forward. Here he is asking such obvious questions, ones Jack still has no answer too.

“No,” he says, but only because he dislikes the wishy-washy sound of ‘maybe’. A ‘no’ is closer to what’s likely anyway. “I just came by to make sure you were okay.”

That sounds even worse than the his answer. As soon as that statement leaves his mouth, Jack regrets it. How can he claim to be worried about Reinhardt’s safety when he’s got a barrier-weakening pistol  tucked away at the bottom of his bag?

“I am more than fine, my friend. You, on the other hand, look hungry. Please, let me treat you to lunch.” Jack wants to protest, claim he’s fine, but even if tea is affordable, it’s hardly filling. Neither is coffee. He hasn’t eaten since before he got on the ferry and the pragmatist in him doesn’t want to pass up a free meal. It would be nice, he thinks, dining with Reinhardt again. They’d eaten in the safehouse, but an actual lunch sounds better than a meal of cold ravioli right out of the can.

“Off-base?” he asks, giving the other man a sidelong glance. When Reinhardt nods, Jack hums in thought and then nods back and allows Reinhardt lead him back to the truck after he’s stashed his rifle again. As uncomfortable as it is, Jack still puts his duffel at the foot of the chair, exchanging the comfort of extra legroom for the security of his gun being nearby. Reinhardt starts the car and takes them down the road, away from the base he came from.

Watchpoint: Gibraltar was built on a rocky cliffside, a sprawling complex away from the city but closer to a small and isolated beach. He and Reinhardt drive past it on their way down the road and into the city and Jack feels a pang of nostalgia as Reinhardt carries the bulk of the conversation, occasionally punctuated by nods and hums from Jack’s end. They drive through streets that are only _mostly_ familiar now, shops and souvenir shops long since replaced by other shops and souvenir shops that are _just different enough_ to make it uncanny. It puts him on edge.

Eventually, Reinhardt stops them in front of a building with a familiar name, but a different store front. Jack wrinkles his nose and furrows his brow, mouth turning down in a frown. Reinhardt pats him on the shoulder with startling slowness and consideration.

“It moved five blocks,” he says, opening his door and stepping out of the car. Jack follows suit, grabs his bag as well. If he minds, Reinhardt doesn’t make a mention of it as they step outside and let the hover-wheels fold under the car.

 _Panaderia Emme’s_ is small and looks almost stubbornly the same in spite of its move. Everything is in almost the same place, excluding window decorations and certain new confections in the display cases. The decorations tell him it’s fall here, something he should already know but never considered. He keeps track of headlines, but time has always been a strange and nebulous thing for Jack since he “died”. Lately he just measures it in days and weeks spent on a mission. The decorations make the passage of time seem more real, even though he knows it’s late September. Reinhardt steps forward and pulls the door open for him, ever the gentleman. Jack stares at him and pulls his baseball cap down further, but still walks through the door first.

The woman at the counter is a long-time employee and Jack had been familiar enough to her that he remembers that her name is Camilla. Like him, she’s gone gray and clipped her hair short. Unlike him, she looks like she’s actually been sleeping well, cheeks rosy pink and face round and open. Jack ducks behind Reinhardt and keeps his head down, pulse quickening and hoping against all hope that he isn’t recognized. Reinhardt casts a glance back to him and smiles, then turns his attentions to Camilla, launching immediately into small talk. Jack takes the distraction for what it is and waves at them both before slinking off to settle at a table in the corner--just enough to have visibility out the window, but not so much that he could be taken out by a rooftop sniper. His back is to a wall as well, which finally lets him breathe a sigh of relief.

After some time, Reinhardt comes back with a tuna sandwich for Jack and with a veritable platter of sandwiches for himself. He always was a big eater. It makes sense, considering how massive he is.

Jack takes a careful bite of his sandwich and chews slowly then, finding nothing off about it, takes a closer look at Reinhardt’s meal.

“Fleischwurst sandwiches? In Gibraltar?” Reinhardt chuckles around a bite, swallows and gives him a wink.

“Camilla enjoys my company.”

“Your company.”

“We talk often,” Reinhardt supplies. “Most usually about books she’s been reading. Camilla is quite the scholar.”

They eat silently for a while longer, Jack letting his concerns build up until they come pouring out of his mouth.

“You can’t think that reinstating Overwatch is a good idea.” Reinhardt looks at him, unfazed, but then casts his gaze down to the table and furrows his brow.

“Look at what is happening, Jack. The museum robbery, the conspiracy with LumériCo, the increasing tensions in Numbani and London.”

“And you think Overwatch is the solution?”

“The world might not need Overwatch, but it needs _something_. Perhaps it will go better this time, but at the very least, Talon cannot continue to operate unopposed. You cannot mean to fight them alone?”

Jack says nothing in response to that, just bites aggressively into his sandwich. Reinhardt stares at him, then sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. Jack finishes his chewing then sits up a little straighter. Reinhardt can _not_ talk about bringing back a failed international task force then react like he’s being the unreasonable one.

“We would be glad to have you back,” Reinhardt says, voice softer now, more kind. Jack has never known the man to beg for anything in all their time together. Maybe as a joke, but never seriously; but when he asks for Jack to come back, there’s a note in his voice that pleads. He snorts and looks away, takes another bite into his sandwich and pretends that Reinhardt didn’t just ask him that question.

“It wouldn’t have to be as Strike Commander Morrison,” he says. “I would be happy to have you as Soldier:76, or as Jack. Ana is returning.”

“What?”

“It is a recent decision. Fareeha has decided to offer her services. I believe Ana wishes to stay and protect her.”

It’s reasonable, but Jack finds himself resenting the way that Reinhardt and Ana use their presences as bargaining chips, as if the fact that they will be there is enough to get him to return to Overwatch. There is a small shivering part of him, little rookie Jack Morrison, who remembers what it was like to have people you loved fighting with you for a common goal. Part of him wants that back so badly.

“I’ve got unfinished business.”

Reinhardt bristles, shoulders rising up like hackles, and Jack is ready to be chastised for his foolishness. He almost wants it, wishes for a fight or an argument to prove him right, to prove that Reinhardt wasn’t worth coming back and reconnecting with.

The tirade never comes.

From across the table, Reinhardt sighs and his shoulders droop back to how they were, then even lower.

“You don’t need to do this alone, Jack. We can help. Fighting against the injustices you correct as a vigilante is why we’re being recalled. Perhaps while we do that, we can also find what you seek.”

“You want me to join up, but the new Overwatch is barely running. Not to mention operating illegally on an international level.”

“I could say the same of you,” Reinhardt retorts, eyebrow raised. Jack has to admit, the man has a point.

“I don’t need help, and I don’t want it either. Bringing back Overwatch is pointless.” He tenses again, ready to storm out, but Reinhardt smiles that sad smile and holds up his hands, placating.

“My apologies. I didn’t mean to be so aggressive, only to offer the option.”

The only thing keeping Jack from going on a tirade is that making a ruckus in a public place would be bad for him, considering he’s the subject of an international manhunt. There’s also the fact, whether or not Reinhardt knows it, this might be their last date and he doesn’t really want to ruin it. Instead of arguing further, they settle down and eat their lunch in a less than companionable silence. When Reinhardt settles his hand on the table, Jack gives himself a pat on the back for not reaching forward and taking it immediately, even if it does prove tempting.

The tension leaves his frame when Reinhardt pays and they both leave the establishment and get back into the car. While it would seem like a more vulnerable target, Jack is well aware that even Overwatch civilian vehicles are built like tanks. Close quarters seem a little safer to him, even if he knows they aren’t. They’re on the road again when he shifts his feet and knocks the toe of his boot against his duffel bag in a way that simultaneously jogs his memory and makes him feel guilty. He sighs and reaches down into his bag, digging around until he finds the smaller gun case he carries, and sits back. He sets it onto his lap and smooths his hands across the hard lid. Reinhardt, sensing the gravity of the situation, pulls over to the side of the road. They’re not even halfway back to base.

Not for the first time, Jack realizes that Reinhardt puts himself in so many vulnerable positions with so little consideration. If he wanted to, Jack could pull this gun out and load it right in front of him, and Reinhardt wouldn’t think anything of it until he pointed it at his head and pulled the trigger. The thought of even doing that makes him sick. Killing a friend? When did his regard for them drop so low?

“This is one of the guns from the warehouse,” says Jack, rapping his knuckles on the case. He waits for the hammer to drop. Reinhard offers nothing but a thoughtful rumble in return and Jack has to stop himself from clinging when Reinhardt reaches over to take the case from him. He snaps it open and gives the contents a once over. A large caliber pistol and three extra magazines cradled in foam. The silence is thick enough to cut with a knife as he looks the weapon over.

“You took this from the warehouse in Toledo,” he says. “Why?”

And what can Jack say to that? Nothing reasonable, for sure. His jaw works, tensing and untensing. Reinhardt looks at him and then at the gun, pieces of the puzzle coming together in his mind. When it all clicks, he sighs and _droops_. It’s like watching a mountain bend.

“You used to have so much trust in in your comrades, in your friends. What happened, Jack?”

“Switzerland.”

“They never declassified what happened there to me. I had been retired by then--”

“Conveniently,” says Jack, before he can think better of it. He snaps his mouth shut, berates himself inside his head for letting a stupid theory that he discarded before coming here rear it’s ugly head again. It’s far too late. He can feel the way all good grace has drained from the cab of the car. Out of all the things he tells himself he doesn’t miss from the old days, the one thing he actually _doesn’t_ is the way Reinhardt gets when he’s angry at friends. The silence between them feels like a weight between his shoulder blades, like a hand pressing his face down into the dirt.

“I’m sorry, Reinhardt. I--”

“My lack of presence when Overwatch fell,” Reinhardt says, interrupting him easily, “was not something I intended. You should know. You fought the longest against my retirement. For a while. I do not begrudge you your surrender. Simply remember that I did not go quietly.”

“I remember,” Jack says. “You broke Petras’ desk in half before you stormed out of the building.”

Reinhardt laughs mirthlessly at the memory and snaps the gun case closed again before offering it back to Jack, who pushes it away.

“No. No, I-- The reason I came here was to give you that. And to say that I’m sorry. For suspecting you.”

“I can understand why you are… wary,” says Reinhardt, putting the gun in the backseat.

Jack’s fingers curl into the fabric of his pants when Reinhardt hesitates on that last word. Reinhardt has the most active imagination of any grown man he’s ever met. Jack would be insulted at the implication that he’s paranoid if he wasn’t fully aware that Reinhardt is right. He’s getting too suspicious, jumping at shadows. He spent a week in Germany after Toledo wasting time and chasing a lead that didn’t exist. He’d actually gone into Reinhardt’s old safe house, a small cottage on the outskirts of Freudental, looking for evidence he swiftly realized didn’t exist. It hadn’t taken him long to feel guilty. Reinhardt had believed in what Overwatch could be far too much to spit in the face of everything they’d ever worked for.

As the other man pulls back onto the road and resumes their trip, Jack folds his arms and almost hugs himself. He can see Reinhardt glance at him for a moment before turning his eyes back onto the road.

“Come back to base with me. We do not need to tell anyone, and you don’t need to join. Just stay a little while and we can talk.” And Jack is weary with how much of an emotional wreck he is right now, but he offers a wry smile anyway.

“That’s not what we did last time,” he says. Reinhardt, despite being the one who initiated the aforementioned last time, has the gall to blush to his ears.

+++

He sneaks Jack past Athena with a few carefully chosen words, but even with his lack of experience with A.I., he can tell she’s hardly fooled. Gibraltar might not have been the most advanced of their Watchpoints, but he’s sure Athena is wired to enough sensors and security to know Jack Morrison when she scans him. That she lets them both in with a warning not to cause trouble is a boon. That she agrees not to tell Winston after Reinhardt begs her to keep his privacy is something he isn’t quite sure how to pay back. He has noticed some of the fish-eye lenses she uses for surveillance around the base are dirty, so perhaps he’ll simply clean them for her.

Reinhardt spirits Jack into the wing of the base his room is in, and from there into the bedroom itself. He wishes his bed looked more slept in the moment they get into the room, but he hasn’t been sleeping well lately, so there’s no hope for that. His bags sit half unpacked at the foot of his bed. Usually, he is a better host than this.

Jack sets his bag down near the door and looks around the room carefully. Reinhardt watches as his shoulders drop lower as he looks around, and it’s through familiarity with the man that Reinhardt knows he’s looking for potential exits and ways to defend himself if he needs to. Reinhardt wills himself not to be so annoyed by Jack’s display of paranoia, suppresses the urge to pinch the bridge of his nose again. Anything is better than the gun from Toledo, now stashed in Reinhardt’s locker in the vehicle bay. Not the safest place, but he certainly wasn’t going to bring it into the room.

He sits himself down in an armchair at the corner of the room while Jack paces around it, leans back and waits a while before actually speaking.

“Can we talk about what happened in Switzerland?” A blank stare answers him, and Reinhardt continues. “We thought you were dead, Jack. Part of the base exploded and you were simply… gone.”

He trails off into a murmur and looks down at the floor, trying to figure out how he wants to word the rest of his feelings. It is terrible when he has to think on his emotions. He’s so much more used to simply charging ahead. He’d not done the best in his conversation with Ana, though she had been understanding at how upset he’d been. He wants to avoid that now that he’s been given a second chance. It’s only after a long moment of silence that he realizes that he actually _doesn’t_ want to assuage any of Jack’s guilt. He hadn’t wanted to with Ana either. He’s not proud of his bitterness, but he doesn’t hate himself for it either. It is just.

“I spoke at your funeral. Gave you eulogy.”

Jack says nothing for another long while before plunking himself down on the bed and nodding.

“I read a transcript in one of my obituaries. It was...” And here he pauses, clearly struggling with words. Reinhardt waits, sullen but not unreasonable. Jack had never done well with social interaction before. He had relied on Gabriel and Ana to push him through most direct contact, on Torbjörn and Reinhardt to provide distraction. It’s obvious that being away from society has not helped with his interaction skills.

“They were good words,” says Jack eventually. There’s another pause, and Reinhardt looks up and watches Jack’s face twist into a grimace at his own statement. “I mean-- I liked them. They kept me going sometimes. You didn’t lie about me. Fifty different articles across several news sites, and you were the only one who talked about me like I was just a man.”

It’s through many years of practice that Reinhardt keeps himself from interrupting. Jack always needs his time to plan what he’s going to say. It’s why he was better at speeches than meetings. As much as Reinhardt is loathe to give him time--Did he not get enough time to consider this scenario while he was playing dead?--he gives it anyway.

“After Switzerland, I wasn’t sure who to trust. I got suspicious. Paranoid. Spent a lot of time jumping at shadows. Still do,” he says, thinking of Reaper, of the face behind his mask. “Ana is… helping. So are you, sort of. But things are still up in the air sometimes.” Reinhardt thinks back to the pistol and nods his understanding.

“Do you plan to let everyone know you’re alive?” he asks, changing the subject with all the grace of a hammer hitting a nail. Jack shakes his head.

“Just you and Ana for now at least. Think Talon already knows.”

“If they did, they would have found some way to publish it. To make it harder for you to move around, and to smear your name even further,” says Reinhardt. “I think it is safe to say they aren’t aware of who you are.”

Jack stares at him and blinks, lets out a rush of air at the implication and seems to relax a little further.

“Guess you’re right about that,” says Jack. Reinhardt wonders what else he’s not being told, and Jack gets up from the bed and steps over to him, pressing their foreheads together. “Thanks.”

There is a short moment where the absence of sound is punctuated only by their breathing.

“You aren’t staying, are you?”

“I’m sorry.” Reinhardt makes a small, noise of frustration and hugs him tight, but when starts to Jack pull away, he lets go. Reinhardt pulls himself up from the chair and holds his hand out to Jack, who takes it.

“Let me at least show you out so you don’t get caught.”

+++

Reinhardt spends the latter half of his day cleaning the myriad of optic sensors that Athena has scattered through the base. When he’s done, he’s surprised by Hana, who comes to him with an offer to guest star on her stream. It’s an offer he takes with grace, still something of a fan after so many streams watched with Brigitte on the road. He knows she’s still a little star-struck every time D.Va passes her in the hall. For a few hours, he yields himself to answering strange questions that she feeds him from the chat, expertly ignoring the viewers intent on asking him about subject that are too personal. It’s fun, and a perfect way to take his mind off of his conversations with Jack.

“It is getting late, D.Va,” he says when it hits around midnight, and she laughs and nudges her shoulder into his. Theatrically, he pretends that it off-balances him for a moment

“It’s early for me, but I guess you _old men_ need your rest.”

“Beauty sleep,” he says, and brushes his fingers through his hair, giving the camera a wink. D.Va laughs, and it’s a refreshingly genuine sound, different from the usual giggled she gives her audience when she’s putting on a performance. She has to cover her mouth to stop. Reinhardt says goodbye to her audience in the meantime, and D.Va assures them that he’ll be back for another guest appearance at a later date before waving goodbye and turning back to her screen.

Things feel different when he returns to the hallway his room is in, more tense and somehow wrong. Reinhardt hums to himself and treads lightly, listening for anything out of the ordinary. He’s surprised to hear noise, since he lives in a wing away from the other dormitories. He’s more surprised to hear it coming from his room of all places.

The only reason that Reinhardt is sure that the noise in his room isn’t someone trying to kill him is because no assassin would move so obviously if they wished to ambush him. He pauses with his hand on the doorknob, clearance card in the other, and presses his ear to the door. Whoever the person is, they’re in the bathroom. An odd choice to be sure.

When the shuffling stops, Reinhardt inhales and makes peace with the fact that he could potentially be in a lot of pain sometime soon. He taps his card quickly against the reader, waiting barely a moment before he shoves his way in fast enough that it’ll give anyone pause.

The blood is a surprise.

It trails to his tiny bathroom in a mixture of bloody boot prints and drag marks. Reinhardt squints into the dimness of the room and reaches for the baseball bat he usually keeps by the door, only for his hand to touch a bare wall. He feels around for a bit before looking down and finding that his improvised weapon has been removed. He grumbles and follows the trail with his eyes then moves alongside it and slowly pushes open the door.

“Jack?”

Jack looks up when his name is called, hand stilled halfway to several deep cuts on his right-hand side. His jacket and shirt have been taken off and thrown over the shower curtain rod, and he’s sitting on the toilet seat trying to tend to his wounds. There are several bloody washcloths at his feet, discarded after being found too small to properly staunch the bleeding. Now he has a hand towel that he’d evidently pulled away for a moment to check the bleeding.The mask is still on, but he can see the furrow in Jack’s brow when the other man looks up from his wound to find him standing in the doorway.

“You didn’t used to turn in this early.”

“An old man needs his rest,” Reinhardt says. “I thought you weren’t coming back.”

He picks the towels up from the floor and drops them in the sink, closing the drain and turning the water to cold to let them soak. The water turns a rusty red almost immediately, and Reinhardt makes peace with the fact that his towels will never be _quite_ the same delicate shade of pastel blue ever again.

Jack doesn’t respond to him, just stares at him like a deer caught in the headlights, and eventually Reinhardt has to sigh and move to his side, pushing his hand away to get a better look at the damage. They look like claw marks, but not the frantic sort of an animal. Reinhardt hums and moves away toward the sink before kneeling down. He pulls a tackle box from the cupboard below the sink, sets it at Jack’s feet and opens it up.

It isn’t that he doesn’t trust Angela, but she was never present for his life on the road, and even here, he would rather not go into her office for supplies if he can help it. She reminds him of his age frequently, does not understand his desire to keep fighting, and lectures him often about Brigitte’s presence in his life. At sixty-one, he should not be subject to lectures about his lifestyle.

“You do this a lot?” asks Jack. Reinhardt ignores him in favor of pulling out a tube of high grade medical nanogel, a pair of tweezers, and several cotton balls. Jack’s super soldier healing has already taken care of the bleeding, slowing it down to a trickle.

“When Brigitte and I were on the road, injuries happened often. Occasionally, we would contact Angela to consult with her, and she would send us spare medical supplies, if they were civilian-grade. We got quite good at treating things ourselves.” They got quite good at a lot of things, and really, if they took the occasional supplies from gangs they hammered into the ground, that was neither here nor there. It’s how they occasionally came into medical supplies that were far above what civilians would normally be allowed.

“So,” says Jack, picking the tube up from where he’s left it on the edge of the sink. “Does Angie know that you’ve got hospital grade nano-gel under your sink?”

“Does she know you’re alive?

“Hn… Fair point.”

Reinhardt dabs at the wound a few more times with the towel before throwing it into the sink with the others and tearing open one of the larger alcohol wipes. He swabs gently at the ragged tears, and when Jack hisses and winces under his hand, he doesn’t make a mention of it, even though he wants to. Once he’s done making sure everything he clean enough, he picks up a cotton ball with the tweezers and begins applying the gel in swift, even strokes.

“What did this to you, Jack?”

“I got tangled up with Reaper.”

“He’s here?” says Reinhardt, tensing suddenly in surprise.

“Caught him outside the perimeter of the base. Not sure if he was coming or going.” Jack looks like he’s about to say something else, but thinks better of it and shakes his head instead. “You should probably check on everyone just in case.”

“One moment,” Reinhardt says, and set the tweezers down on the rim of the sink, stepping away into the next room and picking his tablet up from the bureau.

“Athena, give me a status report on all agents currently on base.”

“Of course, Reinhardt.”

She rattles off the names of several agents on base and their locations and health status according to what she can scan. Lúcio and Genji respond to Athena with pings upon her request, preferring to take their quarters out of the system for the time being, taking privacy over precaution. Once he’s certain that everyone is safe, he asks her for a status update on herself. While she thanks him for cleaning several of her lenses, she has nothing to report.

“Systems nominal,” she says evenly, and Reinhardt breathes a sigh of relief and ducks back into the bathroom.

“Everything steady?”

“Yes, everything is fine.”

“Strange that he was here alone,” Jack murmurs, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “Usually he operates with a strike team. It’s definitely something to look into, that’s for sure.”

Reinhardt goes back to swabbing the wound, watching as the gel grows rubbery as it seals itself around the cuts to prevent infection and promote healing.

“And what were _you_ doing around the base perimeter?”

Jack freezes at the question then hunkers down, gripping the toilet seat and looking patiently at the floor. Reinhardt taps the edges of the medical gel, making sure it’s sealed itself correctly while he waits for an answer.

“I don’t have a base of operations here,” he finally says. “And I wanted somewhere safe to sleep.”

“I see,” says Reinhardt, and smiles to himself. “Well, those seals will hold just fine, so you should be able to shower if you are feeling capable.”

“I’m hurt, not dead,” says Jack, and Reinhardt laughs and begins throwing wrappers into the trash. He checks on the towels again and drains the sink so he can rinse them properly as Jack strips off the rest of his clothes. Reinhardt takes them off the floor after the other man has stepped into the shower. The shirt is a loss and goes in the trash, While the jacket is also quite torn, Reinhardt simply wipes the blood off it with a towel he’s finished rinsing and leaves it to hang on one of the towel hooks next to Jack’s other gear. He drops the other clothes into his own laundry hamper and hefts it up, balancing it on his hip.

“Jack, where are the rest of your things.”

“...Under your bed.”

“Ah, well. I am going to take care of this laundry then.”

\---

He can’t say he likes being left alone with his own thoughts, but the warm water feels nice against sore muscles and skin. Jack finds himself basking before long. It’s been some time since he’s had a hot shower. Most of his safe houses are barely equipped with proper plumbing. His motions are usually detached and mechanical, but he finds himself taking his time and luxuriating in it for once. The benefits, he supposes, of being in a place where he feels safe.

When he comes out, there’s a deep blue towel balanced on the edge of the sink that wasn’t there before, along with a pair of Reinhardt’s sweatpants and a plain white undershirt. Once he’s dried off, Jack pulls on the clothes. The drawstring of the pants has to be tightened until they fit around his waist, and he has to roll the hems up just so his feet can touch the ground. The shirt either hangs off one shoulder or too far down his chest until he manages to even it out so that it only exposes his collarbones. He looks around once he’s dressed, squinting at the entire room. Everything is incredibly blurry without his visor, but he can make out a shape that’s like a towel rack, so that’s where he hangs his towel before he exits the bathroom.

Reinhardt’s room is empty when he steps back into it, and for a moment Jack is struck with the awkward stillness of everyone who has ever been alone in a bedroom that isn’t their own. He keeps it at bay by kneeling down and pulling his duffel out from under Reinhardt’s bed, organizing it mostly by touch. Without the tactical visor, the most Jack can get is colors and the impressions of shapes, but his brow furrows when he realizes that his bag of dirty laundry is missing. The reason for that slides through the door not a moment after his realization, and Jack has a feeling that the red shape hanging in Reinhardt’s hand is his now-empty laundry bag. Jack holds a hand out for it then, once it’s given to him, folds it up and shoves it into an inside pocket.

“Washing my clothes?”

“They were filthy,” Reinhardt says. “I mixed them in with some of my own so it wouldn’t look suspicious.”

Reinhardt moves toward his chest of drawers and Jack squints to see what he’s taking off the table. It’s a tablet, and for a moment Jack is concerned about whether or not Reinhardt is trying to find a subtle way to tell someone he’s here and alive. Reinhardt turns toward him, a movement that’s hard to miss, and cocks his head in thought before nodding. He taps the glass a few times and the tablet chimes that it’s no longer connected to the Wi-Fi, which sets Jack at ease again.

“I’m only planning to read, Jack.”

“What’re you reading?”

“Don Quixote,” says Reinhardt. Jack snorts and rolls his eyes, and Reinhardt huffs back at him and crosses his arms. “It is a classic.”

“That you’ve read at least a hundred times.”

“Because it is a _classic_!”

There is a soft pause between them, then it’s broken by their soft laughter as Reinhardt settles on the bed and Jack pulls out a small gun maintenance kit. Jack can feel the tension in the room bleeding out slowly. They may not be at their best right now, but they’ll get better. He and Reinhardt will be okay. They can get better with time.

+++

Reinhardt lets Jack sink into the mundanity of weapon maintenance while he allows himself to enjoy his novel. He lets the click and clatter of disassembly, cleaning, and reassembly, provide background noise to his reading until everything goes silent. When he looks down, Jack is putting away his gun with an unfocused look in his eyes that has little to do with how poor his vision is now. Reinhardt puts his tablet aside and reaches for him slowly, places a hand on Jack’s shoulder and calls for him.

“Jack.”

It doesn’t take long for the other man to snap out of it. Jack reaches up and pats his hand, then pulls himself up with a groan and heaves himself onto Reinhardt’s bed. They stay there quietly, skin brushing in several places, and Reinhardt simply lets the tension mount until he can’t anymore. He can feel the weight in his chest of a question unasked, and he’s never been the sort to let things lie when he doesn’t need to.

“Is there… Are you expecting anything?”

“Not if you aren’t up for it,” says Jack, and shrugs.

“I enjoy making love to you--” Reinhardt starts, only for Jack to hide his face in his hands and groan. Reinhardt laughs to himself before continuing, reaching a hand out to card it through Jack’s hair as he speaks. “--however, I’m not sure it’s entirely helpful to the situation.”

“Well, I’m having fun,” Jack teases, grinning sharp.

“Jack...”

“Okay, I’ll bite. What do you think would be better?”

Reinhardt’s answer is to turn onto his side and tuck one arm under his pillow then stretch out the other. After a moment, Jack rolls into it and Reinhardt pulls the other man up against his chest. Jack doesn’t seem to know where to put his arms at first, must have forgotten after so long. Eventually, one arm ends up slung across Reinhardt while the Jack tucks the other close to his chest. He grumbles at first, but Reinhardt presses a small kiss to his forehead and smooths a hand down his back, and eventually Jack relaxes and tangles their legs together.

With each pass of his hand down Jack’s back, Reinhardt maps his skin and where it’s changed. They hadn’t been this delicate sort of intimate back into Toledo, but now that he’s closer, he can learn more. His hand follows the trail of Jack’s spine, and he notices how much more scarring there is now and much more severe than he remembers. He hums softly as he feels Jack mirror his movements, tracing circles on his back with his fingertips until he moves his hand lower, the tips of his fingers slipping down until they’ve moved past Reinhardt’s waistband. Reinhardt can’t help his breathy laugh, though it turns into a groan once Jack presses a sucking kiss to the column of his throat.

“You really are intent on this, hm?”

“I want to make it up to you,” Jack murmurs against his throat.

“Jack,” says Reinhardt, pulling back to look him in the eye. “You don’t need to make anything up to me. That’s not a reason to do this.”

Jack pauses for a moment, exhaling softly in one shuddering breath, and tucks his face back into Reinhardt’s neck again.

“What do _you_ want to do, Jack?”

“Have sex.”

“Why?”

Reinhardt doesn’t get an answer for a while, but waits patiently while Jack ruminates on the question before pulling his face back up and looking at Reinhardt in the eye, for all the good it does him. Jack shrugs, then when that doesn’t look to be a good enough answer, sighs.

“I get hurt too damn much to pass up an opportunity to feel good when I see it, and what little peace I get these days, I want to share with you.”

He has just enough time to see Reinhardt beam at him before the other man presses their mouths together for a pleasantly firm kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There's probably about one more proper chapter left for this. Next might be an Interlude that'll definitely include a pretty grounded sex scene, unless I decide to move that to a separate companion piece to keep the mood. After this, we can start answering questions about what exactly Reaper was doing in Watchpoint: Gibraltar.


	3. Interlude: As If We Were Quite New

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Reinhardt and Jack finally have that sex that Jack is so intent on having, though it takes them a while to lead up to it, and they hit a few bumps on the way.

Reinhardt breaks this kiss first, still smiling at him. His grip tightens slightly as he rolls onto his back, pulling Jack up so he’s settled comfortably on top. Jack sits up, straddles Reinhardt’s waist and takes a moment to just marvel. Even with his blurry vision, Reinhardt is huge, all broad chest and slabs upon slabs of muscle. Jack might not be able to see it well, but he can feel it just fine. He runs his hands up Reinhardt’s stomach and all the way to his chest. Reinhardt may not be as built as he was back when they were younger, but the power there is still obvious. If he didn’t know better, Jack wouldn’t be able to peg Reinhardt for a man in his sixties. He lets himself get lost for a while, then jolts and blinks when he feels hands on his body.

“Jack?”

“Sorry. Got lost in thought.”

“What kind of thoughts,” says Reinhardt, and his voice sounds sly and knowing.

“I was thinking that I wanted to actually be able to see you.”

The hands on him pause after that. He hadn’t really noticed they’d been moving, palms sliding up and down his sides and wrinkling the fabric of his shirt. Reinhardt curls his fingers and Jack feels the beginning of a laugh bubble up in his throat, the barest start of his abdominals tensing. He bends forward only slightly, hands stilling Reinhardt’s at the wrist.

“Go and get your visor, _bärchen_. I want more for you to be comfortable than I do for it to be dark.”

“I don’t… really need the visor for this. There’s an alternative.”

Jack doesn’t get off the bed entirely, reluctant to part after finally mustering up the courage to go after what he really wants. Instead, he twists himself and reaches, fingers brushing against a hard case in his bag before he finally managed to get a hold of it. He pulls himself back up onto the bed, then straddles Reinhardt properly again, snapping the case open and looking down at the blurry shape within, then back at the man beneath him.

“Not a word.”

Jack takes the glasses out of the case and snaps it closed before dropping it over the edge so that it lands in his bag. He unfolds the glasses--plain black steel with square lenses and blue arm-ends--and slips them on his face. The world is made sharper, but without the red tint his visor affords to him. It’s not perfect, but it’s enough to bring Reinhardt back into focus. Reinhardt, who looks like he’s trying very hard to follow Jack’s instructions and keep his mouth shut. Jack can only stand so much of the staring and tight-lippedness before he fixes the other man with an even stare, then sighs.

“Get it out of your system.”

“I never thought to picture you in glasses,” says Reinhardt.

Jack can read between the lines well enough to catch what Reinhardt means. The Jack he knew back in the day didn’t need glasses, would never have needed them thanks to S.E.P., and probably wouldn’t have worn them even if he did. He’d be right. It’s one thing that’s hardly changed about him throughout the years, and that’s almost as refreshing as it is disappointing. For better or for worse, Jack’s always been startlingly conscious of his appearance.

“And?”

“Jack, you look fine. Come here.” He sees Reinhardt reach for him, feels big hands cup his face and pull him closer. He lets Reinhardt move him, slowly and inexorably, the pull of his hands like gravity. Jack stretches out on top of him and closes his eyes as he moves with his hands.

 _Damn waste of time, putting on glasses,_ he thinks as their mouths meet.

They kiss for a while, mouths moving but neither willing to take it deeper just yet. Reinhardt moves his hands down, then up again, pushing Jack’s shirt up in the meantime until he’s got it up into his armpits. Jack takes the hint and pulls back just long enough to pull his shirt off and drop it to the side before reaching for Reinhardt and urging him to do the same.

Getting Reinhardt’s shirt off proves to be a little more difficult, and it ends with Jack sitting back so that Reinhardt can get himself up enough so that his shirt isn’t catching in his sheets. He gets it around his head before Jack dives in, running his hands up Reinhardt’s sides, then around to his front until Jack has both his palms settled on Reinhardt’s chest.

“Hairy as ever,” he says with a laugh, and Reinhardt finally gets his shirt the rest of the way off and joins him. Jack strokes his fingers down Reinhardt’s chest, raking his nails through the thick hair he finds there. “Warm too.”

Reinhardt reaches up for him again and pulls him down a little less gently, bare skin already wearing away at his self-control. He’s always been like this, Jack knows. So eager to get into the thick of things, as much in bed as in battle. Out of the two of them, Jack’s always been the one who has to put more consideration into everything. It’s why he’s the first one to pull away from the kiss.

“Do you have stuff for this?” Reinhardt looks at him with a raised eyebrow and a mischievous grin stretches across his face.

“Lube and condoms, yes,” he murmurs, sitting up again so that he can pull Jack to him and tuck his face up against the other man’s neck. Almost immediately, he starts to worry a bruise into Jack’s neck, keeping the use of his teeth careful as his hands settles firmly on Jack’s back. “I should clean up first, however. I wasn’t expecting your company tonight.”

“Lube, condoms, and you still have those complex shower attachments,” Jack muses. “Are you sure you weren’t expecting me?”

“Not all my play is about you, Jack,” Reinhardt laughs and tweaks at his nose as he pulls away from the other man.

There is a part of Jack, the part of him that’s already gone through the trouble of working himself up for this and putting on his glasses, that protests the moving away. He’d be more than happy to just grind one out against the crook of Reinhardt’s thigh, not too different from what they got up to in Toledo. The part of him that’s more sensible has him crawling out of Reinhardt’s lap to settle on the bed. Jack waves a hand toward the bathroom, and Reinhardt laughs and slips off the bed, giving him a lingering and firm kiss before pulling away.

“I promise I won’t be long.”

Reinhardt vanishes through the door to the bathroom and Jack settles back down on the bed, not sure what he’s supposed to do while he waits. He considers looking around for the supplies, but doesn’t want to go digging through Reinhardt’s things more than he has already. Instead, he settles for shucking off his pants and his underwear and slipping beneath the sheets. Reinhardt’s bed is surprisingly comfortable and being tucked into it makes him feel warmer and safer than he has in a good long while. He feels his limbs grow heavy. He rolls his shoulders and sits himself up against the pillows, reaching for Reinhardt’s tablet and flicking through his selection of stories before settling on a book that _he’d_ actually ordered on Reinhardt’s account years ago after mistaking the tablet for his own.

He doesn’t get far into the book, just past the second chapter and into the third, before Reinhardt comes out of the bathroom, along with the sudden change in temperature that comes with a cloud of steam exiting the bathroom. With the prospect of Reinhardt fresh from the shower, finishing an old book seems a lot less urgent than getting his hands on still damp skin. Reinhardt catches him staring and hitches his towel a little higher around his hips. He stops after a single twitch of his hand; realizing how silly hiding himself away is, Reinhardt pulls the towel off and turns to toss it into the laundry basket in the bathroom. Jack gnaws at his lower lip and lets his eyes rove up and down. He looks down to the tablet in his hands as Reinhardt comes to sit at the foot of the bed. Jack thinks they might make quite a pair, him naked and cozied up in Reinhardt’s bed while the other man seems to have little care or concern that he’s naked and damp in front of a long-time lover.

“Catching up on some reading?” he asks, and settles his hand on Jack’s knee over the sheets. Reinhardt slides it up for a squeeze, and they both pause when Reinhardt realizes he’s not feeling the extra layer of fabric he expected, and Jack realizes that Reinhardt has noticed the absence of his clothes.

“Ah.”

“I got tired of waiting for you,” says Jack, and turns the tablet off with a quick tapped out command, then presses the panel that removes the battery, still wary of surveillance. He places both things back on top of the nightstand, then wiggles himself higher up onto the bed. Jack peels the sheets back and Reinhardt slips in next to him, then slings a leg over Jack’s thighs and is suddenly the one straddling him this time around.

Having Reinhardt above him is intimidating to say the least. Being pinned in place by someone so large should have him on edge, but when Reinhardt leans over him and presses a hand into the pillows at either side of his head, Jack feels more safe than he does concerned. When Reinhardt presses another kiss to his mouth, soft and lingering and sweet, he can’t feel anything but relief. His anxiety winds out of him slowly, but eventually he’s a little more relaxed and Reinhardt pulls back once he notices.

“Good?”

“Huh? Oh. Yeah, I’m good. Come back here,” Jack murmurs, and tugs Reinhardt down again.

They kiss slow, Reinhardt sucking and biting at his lower lip until it aches just so. His beard still tickles the way it always had, and Jack feels little more self-conscious about a lack of a shave this morning. It wasn’t something he’d worried about until after S.E.P., and even less now he’s a fugitive. Reinhardt seems to pick up on this, settles a hand on his face and strokes a thumb across the scratchy surface of his stubble.

“You’re thinking too much,” he pulls back to say, then presses onward.

Jack can feel him hardening and reaches a hand down to wrap around the other man’s cock, just barely able to get around the full girth of it with one hand. He strokes upward, twisting his wrist just so, and it gets him the same reaction it always has. Reinhardt tenses and makes a stifled but keen noise in the back of his throat. It’s only when Jack starts to toy with his foreskin, to roll it back from the meaty head of his cock, that Reinhardt finally lets out a shivering little sigh. If they had more time and a lot more supplies, he’d be more than happy to take Reinhardt’s place and ride the other man until his legs gave out. As is, they have neither, but that doesn’t make him want it any less.

He’s almost a little lost in thought when he feels Reinhardt start to move above him, panting and rolling his hips, hands clenching tight in the sheets. Jack makes a soft noise of apology and tightens his grip, which makes Reinhardt let out a shivery little sound that does nothing but stoke the heat already building between them.

“You're not any less responsive,” says Jack, squeezing just so he can hear the man above him choke off a noise. “Kept yourself warm for me?”

It's a stupid thing to say and Jack almost feels a little ridiculous for saying it. He’s never been the sort that’s good at dirty talk. Until Reinhardt knew he was alive a little over a month or two ago, there was no way he would have thought Jack was coming back. Unless…

“Or did you start thinking about me again after Toledo? Start prepping again, just in case?” Reinhardt, who is panting and moaning unashamedly above him, pauses long enough to swallow and nod.

“A little,” Reinhardt admits, voice soft and breathy.

Reinhardt jolts a little bit when he feels the fingers of Jack's free hand stroke up the cleft of his ass, almost petting through the hair he finds there until he pushes past it to stroke at Reinhardt’s hole without hesitation. It flutters under his touch and he feels Reinhardt twist his hips to get firmer contact.

“ _Tsk_. You’re gonna need to be patient,” Jack says, and pulls his fingers away.

“I think it’s funny,” says Reinhardt with a laugh, “that you think I could ever be patient after waiting this long. It isn’t as if I’ve fallen out of practice.”

 _That_ gets Jack’s attention well enough. Even if Reinhardt hadn’t made a secret about it, Jack still pauses and looks at at the other man, both perplexed and intrigued. Reinhardt shrugs and gives him a smile that is all teeth and cheek, then reaches over to his nightstand and rummages around until he finds a half-filled bottle of lube and a foil-packaged condom, shaking them lightly at Jack before holding them out for him to take. Jack gives both items a once over and is pleasantly unsurprised that Reinhardt still hasn’t switched brands in over five years. Again, Reinhardt grinds down on him, pressing the plushness of his ass against Jack’s dick, and Jack manages to bite back an almost embarrassing sound. He grips Reinhardt’s hip harder with one hand while he pulls his other away from Reinhardt's cock, earning him an irritated huff.

“Bad idea to go charging into things,” says Jack. Reinhardt fixes him with a stare that is pointedly unamused.

“We don’t have all night, Jack.”

Jack looks at Reinhardt again, really _looks_ , and can see that pressed-down anxiety for what the future might bring. It lines the edges of his eyes and the curve of his mouth, the slope of his back and the furrow in his brow. With some effort, he sees the thing that Reinhardt doesn’t want to say:

_We could have the rest of the night, if you were just willing to **stay**._

His fingers twitch on Reinhardt’s hips. He wants to drag the other man down for a kiss, but his hands aren’t clean enough to put in Reinhardt’s hair. Instead, he squeezes some lube onto his palm then slicks Reinhardt’s cock, turning the rougher tugs into a more pleasurable slide. Reinhardt bends to meet him and Jack gets his kiss anyway.

It’s not the most coordinated of things, and it doesn’t take long for his neck to start aching with how he far has to crane his head when they’re like this. Still, the way that Reinhardt rumbles pleasantly into the kiss makes it entirely worth it. Jack twists his wrist, rubs the curves of his fingers over the head of Reinhardt’s cock, and the other man opens his mouth and pants into their kiss before pulling back. Jack finds it easier and easier to slip into the person he needs to be when they’re like this. So is Reinhardt by the looks of it, bringing his large hands up to cup at his pecs, flicking the pads of his thumbs across his nipples. Jack shudders under him, a full-body shiver, and Reinhardt laughs and pinches at the pebbled flesh almost meanly.

“Is it good?” asks Jack, licking his lips and moving away to slick the fingers on his other hand.

“As always.” Reinhardt flicks at his own nipples again, makes a strained sound. Jack can’t resist after that, moves now slick fingers to Reinhardt’s hole, petting and rubbing to get the muscle to relax.  He leans forward in the same moment, biting lightly at Reinhardt’s thumb, coxing him to move it so he can flick his tongue across one nipple before dragging his teeth across it. Reinhardt makes a keening noise, then presses his hand over his mouth.

“Will someone hear?” Jack is far too distracted to dwell on his own question, pressing a finger in as he waits for the answer. Already, he can tell that Reinhardt is relaxed enough from cleaning himself up inside, that he can slip a second finger in with little trouble. Reinhardt shakes his head and makes a noise in the negative. “Then be as loud as you want,” Jack says.

Even with the permission and the knowledge, Reinhardt is still surprisingly quiet, panting and sighing as Jack spreads his fingers. What noises he does let escape are still choked-down whimpers by the time they leave his mouth, and he keeps looking down at Jack with such open adoration that Jack doesn’t know what to _do_ with it. He moves his mouth to the other side of Reinhardt’s chest with a series of sloppy kisses, leaving a trail of spit from one nipple to the other, biting lightly until it’s puffy and sensitive, until the combination of his fingers and his mouth leaves Reinhardt moaning openly. Jack grins against Reinhardt’s skin, and it’s a smile that feels almost feral on his face.

“Proud of yourself?” Reinhardt asks, rolling his hips with each curl of Jack’s fingers. He looks close to a grin himself but not quite there, corners of his mouth curled in a lazy smile instead. Jack can’t help but realize that they’ve fallen nearly into sync as he moves his hands and curls his fingers, as he licks across the broad expanse of Reinhardt’s chest. They don’t fit together quite the same way, Reinhardt trying to go faster than Jack remembers, but it’s still familiar. Good.

Jack starts when Reinhardt reaches around and grabs his wrist. He curls his fingers sharper than he means to and bites his lip when he feels Reinhardt squeeze around them. It’s sharp and unexpected, the need that hits him then, like it had been waiting in the wings and has only now decided to swoop down. Suddenly, all he wants is for that tight and slick hole to be wrapped around his cock. All he wants is to watch Reinhardt move, to move with him, to be past this and sated and _together_.

“Yeah, alright,” Jack murmurs, and slips his fingers out and away, wiping them off on the sheets so he can reach for the lube again. He pulls his hand off Reinhardt’s cock and gets a disappointed little noise in return that Jack can’t help but smile indulgently at. It doesn’t take long for Reinhardt to huff at him and take the lube right from his hands, squeezing some out into his palm and warming it with his hand before he pulls himself up and back enough to watch Jack rip open the foil packet and slide the condom on. He slicks Jack’s cock himself, broad hand making short work of the task with a few quick tugs.

“ _Ngh, Reinhardt_...” Jack hisses and twists under him, looks up through narrowed eyes and finds himself a little smitten with how smug Reinhardt seems.

“Good?” Reinhardt asks, and squeezes on the upstroke. Jack’s head lolls back into the pillows and his hands clench in the sheets. He’d almost forgotten how good Reinhardt’s hand felt around him, big enough to cover most of his cock. The pad of one calloused thumb rubs across his tip, and Jack has to bite down on his lip to keep from making too loud a noise. It’s still intense, even through the condom, and the muffled sound of restraint garners a raised eyebrow and a wider smile from Reinhardt.

“Ass,” Jack says fondly. Reinhardt only hums in response and lines him up properly.

Jack only gets a second to appreciate the feeling of Reinhardt's hole kissing the tip of his cock before the other man sinks down with a sound that could only be described as  _incredibly_ satisfied. Jack grips hard at the sheets and Reinhardt takes some pity on him, leaning forward and dropping down to his elbows to press their mouths together again. It’s a welcome distraction, but even with how short the kiss is, Jack finds himself breathing hard by the time Reinhardt pulls back and starts to roll his hips in a slow grind.

He grips Reinhardt’s hip with one hand, the other still curled in the sheets. He doesn’t feel like he’s about to go off at any second, but he still has to hold himself back from being as rough as he’d been used to. Right now, Jack doesn’t want it like that, wants to be slow and sweet and tender. It makes him feel a little sheepish to admit, but after so long, all he wants this to be for Reinhard is _good_. So he digs his fingers into sheets and mattress until he can breathe a little easier, until he feels a little less wound up, then slowly loosens the grips he has on Reinhardt’s hip before bringing his other hand up to the muscle of Reinhardt’s outer thigh, squeezing in appreciation as Reinhardt straightens himself up and starts to pull himself up.

Jack makes a noise he’s probably not going to be proud of later, and Reinhardt laughs and bites briefly at his own lower lip. Jack desperately wants to kiss him and says as much, and Reinhardt gives hims another smile and drops back down, beginning to ride him in earnest.

“R-Reinhardt,” Jack says, choking on the name and on everything else he wanted to say after. He reaches his hand further up, feels up the larger man’s sides. Muscle flexes under his fingertips and it’s a little amazing. He’s willing to admit this to himself now. It’s amazing that he’s here, that Reinhardt is here, and that they’re doing this. Reinhardt clicks his tongue at him and shakes his head, pace moving back to a steady grind when he feels Jack getting too eager to push up.

“Let me take care of you,” Reinhardt says, and when Jack looks at his face, it’s open and honest and _insistent_. Even so, Jack wants to protest, and Reinhardt cuts him off by clenching around him, ripping a groan from his throat and leaving him laying back and trying to get himself in order again. He wants to do more than just this, but Reinhardt wants to dote on him for what little time they have with each other. Jack reaches up and settles his hands on wide hips again, petting Reinhardt and trying to coax the other man into relaxing, into a listening mood. Reinhardt calms eventually, settles into a grind they can both concentrate through.

“I’m not going anywhere just yet, Reinhardt. Let me take care of you too.” Reinhardt stares at him, blinks and then sighs. He looks a little sheepish, being caught out like this.

“I suppose was being a bit selfish. My apologies.”

“It’s fine,” Jack says. Then again, “It’s fine, really. Makes sense. Just... Come back down here for a sec, alright?”

They kiss again, and it isn’t any less awkward for their bodies, Reinhardt still significantly taller than Jack even outside of the armor. Jack feels a pinching ache as he cranes his head up enough, and Reinhardt can feel a throb in his lower back, but it’s nothing they’re not used to. It is, after all, only pain. It’s not worth focusing on when Reinhardt is pressing his tongue into Jack’s mouth, licking at his teeth and palate briefly before lingering when Jack rubs their tongues together. The kiss is slow and slick and just a little messy, but Reinhardt pulls back from it and feels warm and fond, looking down at Jack and picking himself up again, dropping down slower and with more care this time.

“Just like that. _Christ_ , Rein…” And Jack has to admit that some of the reason he even talks during this sort of thing, instead of just giving Reinhardt all the soft noises that ball themselves up in his chest, is to see Reinhardt smile big at him and look so pleased.

Reinhardt moves faster, holds firmer to the sheets on either side of Jack’s head, and Jack feels a little more than overwhelmed. Reinhardt is over him, not at all small and not at all moving slowly. He’s brisk, pulling off and pushing down fast enough that Jack barely feels absence of that tight warmth around his prick. He’s careful, but he’s also firm enough that Jack can feel the ghost of Reinhardt’s weight on top of him. A wrong move would probably be bad for them both, but Jack settles his hands on Reinhardt’s hips anyway, coaxes the other man to sink down while he pushes up.

It’s better when they’re moving together, and he knows because Reinhardt is making more noise, obviously less concerned about making this perfect and more about making it _right_. Jack slips his hands back down to Reinhardt’s outer thighs, kneading the muscle there until he builds up enough confidence to reach for Reinhardt’s cock again. He slows for a moment to get a firm grip, because Reinhardt has always been massive in every way and it’s no different here. It’s entirely worth it when the other man inhales sharply and clenches down for a moment that makes Jack see stars until they both manage to pause and take a breath.

Reinhardt manages to recover first, even as Jack starts to stroke, using leftover lube and the man’s own precum to slick his shaft enough to turn a dry stroke into a smooth glide. He’s still moving, but now it’s a grind more than anything else, and Jack can tell he’s trying to talk, but all that’s coming out are pants and small, whispery phrases of affectionate German. The change in pace gives Reinhardt the opportunity to re-balance, to take one hand off the bed and use it to touch, to scratch lightly down Jack’s chest and back up, touching for the sake of it before he braces himself with the mattress again.

Jack can tell when Reinhardt gets close because his pacing always falls apart, and it’s more obvious now, with the way Reinhardt is going to pieces above him. His hands knead at the mattress, fingers curling and uncurling as he tries to keep himself together. He swears and Jack quiets him and pulls his hand off the other man’s cock, focusing on keeping his end of the pace. Reinhardt is shuddering now, and Jack murmurs to him, tells him sweet things in soft tones and keeps grinding into him until Reinhardt tenses above him for one beautiful moment, then goes almost slack as his hole spasms around Jack’s cock.

“Don’t,” he says, panting, when Jack starts to pull out and away. Reinhardt looks a mess, has covered both of their bellies with streaks of cum, but he’s still got his thighs against Jack’s body, keeping him from pulling out too far. “Don’t stop. Keep going. You aren’t done yet.”

“Reinhardt...” Jack warns, but is met with a shaking head and a happily exhausted smile.

“Jack, people are hardly as delicate as you let yourself believe. Myself least of all.” Jack gives Reinhardt a long, steady look, peeking over the rim of fogged up glasses. Then Reinhardt clenches around him again and he swears under his breath. Reinhardt’s smile goes from tired to playful, and Jack can’t help but laugh at himself and at this situation they’ve found themselves in. He grinds up against Reinhardt, tilts his head up and gets the kiss he’s asking for, quick and sweet.

Reinhardt starts to move again, not as vigorous as before, and Jack is grateful for the effort. He pushes up, doesn’t even bother matching pace, suddenly eager to finish, eager to finally relax. Reinhardt is above him, sweating and making sharp little gasping noises as Jack strokes his hips and moves faster until his own momentum stutters and breaks apart as his orgasm hits him in sharp pulses. Reinhardt doesn’t keep moving, settles himself on his knees and runs his fingers through Jack’s hair as he basks, breathing leveling out into even inhales and exhales. When Reinhardt lifts himself and Jack’s cock slips free, both of them shudder.

Jack is thankful when Reinhardt manages to move off him before dropping down onto the mattress, breathing until air comes to him in slow, even pulls. Even with his enhancements and with Reinhardt being, well, Reinhardt, it still takes them a moment to gather themselves. Jack manages it first, but only because the condom is starting to feel cool and uncomfortable, sheets having long since slid off the bed. He pulls it off carefully, grimacing at a sensation that’s long since become unfamiliar to him, then ties it off and drops it into a bin by the bed before pushing himself up against the pillows. He looks over at Reinhardt, sprawled out as much as he can be for a man his size on a bed meant mostly for him and not another person.

Then he laughs.

It’s a small chuckle, but Reinhardt joins him, and eventually they’re both laughing softly at their entire situation. It’s all a mess, but here they are, sweaty and tired and feeling all the better for it.

“We’re too old for this,” Jack says, and Reinhardt scoffs and rolls over onto his side, skimming a hand down Jack’s chest. He tweaks a nipple playfully, and Jack brushes his hand away with a huff, still feeling sensitive all over.

“Speak for yourself,” Reinhardt says, then pushes himself up against the pillows next to Jack, looking down at the mess they’ve made of themselves. “Hmmmm, we shall wash these tomorrow, I think."

Jack wrinkles his nose and Reinhardt looks at him like he’s done a small and adorable thing that he’s about to comment on, so Jack stops immediately. He has to admit, the man has a point. He hardly feels like sneaking around to do more laundry, and they mostly got the mess on themselves rather than the sheets.

“Let’s at least wipe ourselves down.”

“Well, of course. We are hardly a pair of lost causes just yet.”

Still, once they move to the bathroom, wiping themelves down takes longer than it should. They wet their washcloths, and somewhere along the path of washing their hands and wiping off the thin layer of sweat and cum and lube, Reinhardt manages to crowd Jack against the sink and kiss him until they’re both breathless.

“We--” Jack starts at the break of a kiss, only to be muffled again. He presses back up against Reinhardt and feels warmer than he rightly should, and Reinhardt wraps his arms around Jack’s waist and holds him close as he slides their tongues together. When they pull back from the kiss again, Jack is quick to put his finger on Reinhardt’s lips. The other man gives him a look like a kicked puppy, and Jack sighs almost theatrically.

“We really should sleep,” he says, trying to be logical. Reinhardt opens his mouth and makes to lick at Jack’s finger, laughing when the other man snatches it away and flicks his nose. Instead of immediately pushing back in for another kiss, Reinhardt just holds them there, leans down to press his forehead to Jack’s so that they can breathe together. They kiss again, but this time it’s slow and soft and Jack sighs softly once it’s over. He feels Reinhardt pull away, feels a hand move down and reaches when Reinhardt does, tangling their fingers together.

Reinhardt leads them back to bed, and Jack follows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Had to bump the rating of this fic up to E for this interlude. If it doesn't sit well, I'll probably move it off to it's own side-fic.


	4. One Day Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After a nice night together, Reinhardt wakes up and has to navigate a day around the base and interactions with other members of Overwatch while he has a secret lover in his quarters. Jack has to navigate his own feelings of nostalgia, and resist the urge to self-sabotage when he just fixed by bolting without a word.
> 
> As they settle into a day of domesticity, the inevitability of Jack's eventual departure still lingers over them, turning what would be a ordinarily be a relaxing day into a bittersweet one.

Reinhardt wakes to a warm body next to him and is, in the early hours of the morning, supremely confused. He tries to move and bites back the usual groans at his morning aches. He hasn’t slept next to anyone in some time and that, compounded with age, exacerbates an already too present issue. As he blinks and rubs at his eye, his gaze settles on Jack, and Reinhardt’s expression of sleepy neutrality morphs into one of mild surprise. Even as he remembers last night with a curl of satisfaction in his gut, he’s surprised Jack is even still here.

It’s been so long since he’s woken up to the other man, and with the way Jack had been talking, Reinhardt had been sure that he would wake up alone. Even when they were nebulously together, a morning-after was difficult to come by. Jack was always busy as Strike Commander and Reinhardt hardly had any spare time between training new recruits or being sent on missions. Waking up to Jack now, after he never thought he would again, is a little startling.

The surprise soon fades to a mellow happiness, and Reinhardt finds himself laying back down for a little while longer, basking in shared space and warmth. He lets his breathing slow, considers dozing off again before Jack stirs next to him. The other man rolls over, slings an arm over Reinhardt and braces a hand on his chest. Jack pushes up, hair a mess of soft, white spikes and blinks at him, then at his surroundings.

“Can’t see shit,” he mutters, then leans over Reinhardt and throws his hand toward the end table, casting about for his glasses. Eventually, he finds them and pulls back, sitting up against the headboard as he squints down at the sheets and then at his glasses.

“I wouldn’t if I were you,” Reinhardt advises. “We fell asleep almost immediately after.”

“Like a couple of old men.” A small smile, barely the upward curve of his mouth.

“Like so.”

Reinhardt reaches for his tablet to check the time, then realizes it’s been slightly disassembled. He shrugs, leaning down to nuzzle his face into the fluff of Jack’s hair as the other man stares at his glasses. After a moment, Jack shifts and Reinhardt moves when he moves. They both grimace in response to the feeling of the mess they left last night coming back to bite them.

“You can have the shower first,” he says, then nods his head at the door to the bathroom. “I should go get your clothes.”

Jack grunts and rolls away further, and Reinhardt is sad to see him leave, but goes about putting his tablet back together while Jack pads off to the bathroom. He hears the shower turn on as his tablet does the same, a few messages greeting him for breakfast. His stomach aches slightly, but he’s not unused to the feeling. The messages are recent, and he pulls himself out of bed and tries to make himself as presentable as possible, tapping out careful responses as he puts on his lounge pants and a shirt after wiping himself off as best he can. He’s absorbed enough as he exits his room that he almost steamrolls over Lúcio, who takes a swift step back before adjusting the plate in his hands.

“Woah!” Lúcio looks up at him and then past him to his bed, raising an eyebrow before looking back. “Rough night?”

“Something like that. My apologies.”

They stand there for a while, each looking at the other and not speaking until Reinhardt looks down and notices the plate in Lúcio’s hands, piled high with pancakes and fresh fruit.

“Is that--”

“For you, yeah. You didn’t come down for breakfast, so I figured I’d save a plate for you.”

“... Angela told you to come make sure I ate.” Lúcio hisses out a sigh.

“Yeah... I told her you were your own man, but she insisted. Dr. Ziegler can be pretty… intense, when she wants to be.”

“I know the feeling,” Reinhardt says, taking the plate from Lúcio and plucking a strawberry off the top of the stack. “Regardless, thank you for the fine meal. Give the chef my regards.”

“You’re lookin’ at him,” Lúcio says with a wink. “I play _and_ cook international. Not sure I’ll ever get used to a big breakfast though.”

“You may eventually. You are a growing man, after all. You  _are_ still growing, yes?”

“Yeah, yeah. Old man’s got jokes,” Lúcio gripes, nose wrinkling. He punches Reinhardt lightly in the shoulder. “Go eat. Winston wants us down at the practice range for drills in a few hours.”

“Keep giving orders like that and you might end up an officer,” Reinhardt calls out, stepping back toward his door. He looks back in time to see Lúcio turn to walk away, shoving one hand in his pocket and waving away the statement with the other.

“No chance, Wilhelm. Military just ain’t my style.”

By the time he steps back in the room, Jack is already in the clothes he wore last night, stripping the bed methodically until it’s nothing but a bare mattress and naked pillows. Reinhardt uses the plate to nudge a few things aside on his dresser, making a space for him to set it. Jack looks tense around the shoulders. Probably due to a sudden awareness of where he is, of the vulnerability of his secret. Reinhardt calls his name softly until the other man looks back up from his self-imposed chore, then tilts his head toward the plate.

“There is enough for both of us, I think.” Jack pads over to him, looks at the food only slightly suspiciously. Reinhardt doesn’t allow him to scrutinize it further before he picks it up and settles a hand on Jack’s lower back, coaxing him back toward the bed. “Sit down, sit down. We can eat it together.”

“There's only one fork.”

“We'll share,” says Reinhardt. When Jack smiles, small and almost to himself, Reinhardt does himself the favor of not pointing it out, wanting to watch it for as long as possible.

They sit back on the bed, at the foot of the mattress, and Reinhardt cuts the stack into quarters as well as he can with a dull knife. He and Jack take turns at spearing wedges of soft fluffy pancakes into their mouths, passing the fork back and forth between them. Jack plucks the blueberries from the top before they roll off each time Reinhardt takes a slice of pancake. Reinhardt helps himself to the slices of strawberries until all that's left of their breakfast is a plate that's slightly shiny with the remnants of syrup and fruit juice. Jack sighs and licks his lips and Reinhardt can’t resist ducking down to press a sweet and soft kiss to a sticky mouth.

“Sap,” says Jack, and Reinhardt smiles into the kiss. He could easily see himself skipping drills, just pushing Jack back down to the bed and spending the entire day in it with him. Before he can voice his thoughts, Jack pulls back and places a hand on his chest, then gestures to the still rumpled sheets.

“Laundry.”

“Ah, yes! And I still need to fetch what I left in the washer and dryer last night.”

They both pull themselves up from the bed, Reinhardt settling the plate on top of his dresser as they work together to strip the bed, Reinhardt thinks twice before throwing his sheets, ones that might still be sticky in some places, into the laundry basket he’s going to use to carry their clean clothes in. Instead, he bundles it up under his arm and leans in to press a kiss to the crown of Jack’s head.

“There are spares in the closet,” he says, nodding his head at the small sliding door at the corner of the room. “I’ll be back in a moment."

Reinhardt spots her the minute that he walks into the laundry room, body mostly at level with the open dryer door as she rummages through the clothes there. He bristles more than he would have otherwise, knowing Jack’s clothes are in there as well, but that doesn’t mean that the constant vigilance necessary when he does laundry isn’t tiring.

“Aleksandra,” he sighs, pinching the bridge of his nose as he watches her pull one of his undershirts from the dryer, and put it on over her sports bra and workout sweats.

Imposing as her form is, Zarya is still nearly a foot shorter than him and smaller in some ways. His shirt hangs on her and reaches to mid-thigh and the sleeves are nearly to the elbows, but she hardly seems to notice when she looks at him with an almost sheepish smile.

“Reinhardt, how good it is to see you! We missed you at breakfast,” she says, trying to derail the oncoming subject by switching the tracks as it approaches. It doesn’t work, and Reinhardt moves toward her and tugs lightly at her sleeve before moving to the open dryer. He looks around in it, then back at Zarya. Now decisively caught in the act, she gives a small chuckle and a shrug.

“That,” he says, “is the third of my shirts you have taken.”

“They are very comfortable shirts.”

“And hard to find in my size.”

“I am aware of this,” Zarya says, chuckling and conceding on that point at least. He’s surprised at her almost casual acquiescence on the matter, as she almost never gives in. His relationship with her is a strange one, half-camaraderie and half-competition. He’s unsure what to make of it, but she is new to the taskforce and he supposes he will one day get used to it.

Reinhardt hums, hands flexing on the first piece of clothing he pulls out of the dryer. Normally, he would fold the clothes and put them in the hamper, or at least lay them out beforehand. With Zarya here, and the knowledge that Jack's clothes look noticeably smaller than his own, he settles for taking it out in one big pile and dropping it into the basket.

“I’ll return the shirt once I have washed it.” Reinhardt raises to his full height, basket balanced on his waist.

“See to it that you do,” he says. They stare at each other silently, each wondering who will break first. Reinhardt starts to crack, bites his lip, then eventually breaks with a loud guffaw. Zarya follows, laughing with him and punching him lightly in the arm.

“You have such a good, serious face,” she says, smiling and shaking her head. “But you are terrible at keeping it.”

“I know, I know,” Reinhardt says, laugh petering off into a chuckle. “I cannot stay mad at my comrades. It is a weakness.”

“I will return the shirt tomorrow, along with a few others,” she says, crossing her arms and nodding theatrically. “Hopefully before  Junior Lieutenant Song gets a hold of one.”

“It wasn't so bad last time.”

“She cut two massive holes in the side trying to make a dress.”

“Ah, right…” Reinhardt trails off and shrugs. “She may have underestimated the differences in our size, _but_ the holes were very flattering on me.”

He scans the laundry basket and pulls the offending garment out of the pile, spreading it as much as he can to show Zarya the damage done. Zarya takes it and turns it in her hands. She hums, thoughtfully.

“I can work with this.” Zarya pulls off the shirt she’s taken and passes it back, only to replace it with the other as he looks on in amusement. She looks at Reinhardt and flexes, and he can’t help but laugh again and slap a hand against his knee.

“How do I look?”

“Hah! Dashing, as always!”

Reinhardt tosses his shirt back into his own hamper and gives her a deep bow, getting a jostling nudge to the shoulder in return as they both make their way out of the laundry room, parting in the hallway with a wave.

“I will see you at the drill later, yes?”

“Lúcio informed me of it earlier! I will be there!” He can tell her grin is wide from the end of the hall. There may be more bruises in his future.

 

\---

 

Jack pads around the room for a moment as soon as Reinhardt leaves, finally alone and unsupervised for the first time in hours. The awkward feeling of being in someone else’s space is gone now, hard to maintain after what they did last night. Now he’s just curious, and he stops for a moment to feel out _how_ , worried he’s falling back into old suspicions again. Without anyone here to remind him, he has to catch himself. After the effort it took to patch things up again, Jack doesn’t want to ruin this.

So he thinks about what he’s looking for as he paces, and finds himself drawn to Reinhardt’s dresser, then what’s on top of it: a series of knick-knacks that Reinhardt has always cluttered the space with. Some of them are new. Overwatch had sent everyone all over the world, but that didn’t always mean Reinhardt had time to pick up a magnet or a bottle opener or whatever kibble had caught his eye in a souvenir shop or just on the ground.

Jack picks up a smooth and familiar piece of warm brown stone, turns it in his hands. He remembers watching Reinhardt stick his hand into a river in India and pluck it right out of the water between the fingertips of his massive gauntlets. He’d asked Jack to keep it for him. His armor had no pockets, Reinhardt had reasoned, and Jack had so many on his coat.

He hums to himself, smiles, then sets the stone back down on top of the dresser.

“Right. Where did he say the sheets were again? Ah, right over...”

He’s stopped by a tinny ringing sound coming from his duffel.

Jack picks up on the third ring, needing to find the damn phone first. It’s an illegal model, mostly untraceable and patched into networks on activation. Ana had strong-armed him into getting it once he'd gotten off the ferry, wanting to be able to keep in contact through means that were more consistent than the occasional payphone call, but needing to fight against his stubbornness. He’d told her to use the number sparingly, and she’d mostly disregarded his advice while somehow still giving him space. Her ability to juggle between his idiosyncrasies would be impressive, if he were willing to admit he had any.

“Where are you?” she asks when he first picks up. “I had expected to find you still moping in that safehouse in Cairo.”

Jack is silent for a moment, mumbles his answer until Ana tells him to speak up. It’s the same voice he used to hear her use with McCree whenever the kid was too shamefaced to admit he’d stepped in it and needed help. He finds it more than a little insulting, but answers anyway.

“Gibraltar.”

He can hear the noise on the other end shift, like Ana has pulled the phone away from her ear. Even through their distance, he can feel her peering at the phone with her one good eye before she brings it back up to her ear.

“You haven’t done anything stupid, have you?” A beat. “You have. Spill it.”

“I’m with Reinhardt.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah...”

“ _Oh_ ,” she says, and starts to chuckle. “In a hotel, presumably.”

“In the Watchpoint.”

“ _Jack_ ,” she says, gasping theatrically. “A clandestine meeting! How romantic of you... ” He can hear her pause, hear the click of a spoon stirring around a tea cup before he hears her sipping through the phone.

“It’s not that funny. I could be caught.”

“Whatever would you do if you were caught by people who care about you and thought you were dead.”

“Ana…” he says, warningly. He can feel his shoulders rise, can feel himself bristle at her disregard. “We still don't know who we can trust.”

“But we can trust Reinhardt.”

“I--Yeah. Yeah, you were right.” She hums, and it's an indistinct sound.

“Are you certain you don't need to do another _thorough investigation_?”

 _“Ana!_ ”

“What?” she says, clearly amused by his embarrassment. There's a moment of quiet between them, then Jack breaks it.

“How’s Fareeha?”

“Furious with me, and I cannot blame her. We're not talking at the moment. She said she needed some space.”

“Space? She's your _daughter_.” Ana snorts at his presumption, takes another sip of her tea.

“I'm aware, Jack.”

Another silence. He thinks it’s ridiculous that she can’t go talk to Fareeha regardless, but if he tries to prod Ana’s relationship with her daughter now, he’ll never hear the end of it. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten a tongue-lashing from her for assuming he could understand parenthood either.

“If you, uh… If you need someone to talk to, I'm-- I'll be around.”

“I appreciate it,” she says, then, “I'll let you get back to whatever it was you were doing.”

“Changing sheets,” he says automatically.

“Made a mess, did you?”

“I'm hanging up now, Ana."

Jack perks up when Reinhardt walks back in, already able to smell fresh laundry. It’s not a smell Jack had cared much for before, but after years of using cheap detergent in coin laundromats, it makes him feel a little more at ease here. He’d go and stick his hands straight into the basket, but he’s in the middle of shaking a pillow into a new case, light green this time.

“My apologies,” says Reinhardt, kicking the door closed and setting the basket down on an armchair. “I was caught up with another one of the new recruits. You would be very interested in who we ha-- Jack, why are you looking at me like that?”

‘ _Like that_ ’ turns out to be a smile that Jack can feel is smug even when he’s the one doing it. He hums and shrugs, turns back toward the linen closet and opens the door, pausing when he hears a hiss and a soft curse behind him as Reinhardt finally catches on.

“How many years has it been?” Jack asks, pulling a bunched up ball of green cloth out of the closet. “And you _still_ can’t fold a fitted sheet.”

“Jack, _please_ , no one actually knows how to fold a fitted sheet.” Reinhardt groans and hides his face in his hands, then peeks out between his fingers.

Jack rolls his eyes at the melodrama and fans the sheet out with a quick whip of his arms. It billows out and brushes against Reinhardt, who grabs the edges. Together, they stretch it over the mattress, then Reinhardt nudges him aside with his hip.

“Take care of your clothes, _bärchen_ , or they’ll end up wrinkled,” he says, smiling when he catches Jack rolling his eyes. As he reaches for the top sheet in the closet, Jack settles a hand on his lower back and and pushes himself up to his tiptoes so that he can hook his chin onto Reinhardt’s shoulder.

“You’re sure you’re up for doing training today?” he asks, and watches as Reinhardt swallows a little before he gives the other man a sidelong glance. Jack looks down in the general direction of Reinhardt’s ass, then back up with a small smirk. “Not sore or anything?”

Reinhardt clicks his tongue and turns on his heel, bats at him with the folded top sheet before moving to finish dressing the bed. Which is, of course, when someone knocks on his door. He and Jack freeze in place, then Jack immediately flattens himself against the wall behind the door as Reinhardt opens it.

“Winston! Is it time for practice already?” Jack can see Reinhardt trying to keep the smile on his face, to keep it looking natural and easy. He is, at heart and in practice, a terrible liar. Luckily for them both, Jack is sure Winston’s people reading skills aren’t any better. He just hopes he’s out of sight and, considering Winston, out of smell well enough.

(He knows nothing about gorillas. He wishes he knew anything about gorillas. He never even bothered to search for information, thinking it would be a rude thing to do. Now a small part of him wishes he had waved off the thought of impropriety back then in favor of practicality.)

“Um, no, actually. I came here to tell you that,” Winston sighs, and Jack can hear the telltale pause of the scientist adjusting his glasses, “simply put, while Ms. Lindholm--”

“Don’t let her hear you calling her that.”

“Understood. Well, considering the stories you and Brigitte have told me, she’s done a wonderful job of keeping up your armor. _However_ , there are certain temporary fixes that are best not kept in the long term, and a few of them have made the Crusader armor… something of a death trap.”

“Ahaha... Yes, well, you know how it is on the road. Few supplies, few stops. Temporary fixes sometimes become permanent ones.”

“... _Right_. Well, we can’t exactly allow you into live practice as it is, so Torbjörn has agreed to sit this one out while he and Brigitte work to make your armor...”

“Less likely to kill me?”

“That would be it,” Winston says with a nervous chuckle. Jack rolls his eyes and then looks forward toward their half-made bed. His eyes track to the window he’d come in through the night before, the same one he was planning on escaping out of while most of the base was preoccupied with practice. The conversation fades into the background as he takes a look out of it--even if, in the back of his mind, he’s worried someone might look in and see him--and he only starts when Reinhardt shuts the door and looks aside at him. Jack is quick to refocus on the bed, and then at Reinhardt.

“A day to ourselves, looks like,” he says, and Reinhardt nods in agreement.

“Let’s finish the bed first.”

 

\---

 

He manages to get the rest of the base to leave him in some semblance of solitude for the day, claiming to his most frequent visitors that he’s using the day to catch up on rest and recuperation. Angela in particular is almost ecstatic to hear it, though Brigitte and Torbjörn don’t quite believe him at first. It isn’t until they interrupt him during a nap and look at his bleary-eyed face that they actually believe him.

“I vas sleeping,” he murmurs, bending down to let Torbjörn fret over him. The other man pushes his fingers through Reinhardt’s beard, scratching lightly but affectionately. Brigitte has her hand on her hips, squinting at him as if it will reveal to her all his secrets. Instead, Reinhardt pulls away to yawn and stretch, cringing when they all hear the sound of his vertebrae popping. He relaxes with a sigh, then looks down at the both of them again.

“Is there something you needed from me?”

“Only to tell you that your armor is in need of more repair than I thought, you oaf!” Torbjörn huffs and casts a sidelong glance at his daughter, then looks back at Reinhardt, who is raising a single brow. “Not through any fault of Brigette’s of course.

“Of course,” he repeats. “Brigitte is a mechanical prodigy.” Reinhardt gives Torbjörn a look. Tobrjorn returns it, always stubborn to the last. They both know Brigette is good at what she does, but in a strange twist of irony, Torbjörn doesn’t wish to cultivate his own ego in his daughter.

“She did a good job at maintaining the pile of scrap you gave her to work with, that’s for sure.”

Brigitte looks at Reinhardt, then back to her father, tense and unhappy at the disparity between them.

“I know I did good work,” she says, and hands a datapad over to Reinhardt.

He isn’t entirely too familiar with the intricacies of technology outside of what he uses in the day to day. Many parts in his armor are programmed in a way that he cannot understand, but the diagrams that he flicks through are coded easily enough. Red for problem areas, yellow for slightly less heinous problem areas, green for nominal functions, and blue for things that could be improved.

The only thing he can say as he swipes his fingers across the screen to skim them, is that there are not many green spots. It doesn’t surprise him. He knows that the armor is old, that it’s falling apart. There are many suits like it, some even better, but this one is _his_ . Even if they could pry one of the other suits out of the hands of the _Bundeswehr_ , he wouldn’t take it. It wouldn’t feel _right_ ; and he doubts they could manage it anyway. He has continued to exist as he is for this long by knowing when to toe the line and with whom, and on the kindness and sympathy with which his country views an old warhorse.

“You can salvage it. I have the utmost confidence in you.” He looks at Brigitte, mainly. She deserves recognition for her skill. She’s the one who kept his suit running, and with the resources available to them here, he’s sure she can fix it. Make it _better_.

“And you too, of course, old friend,” Reinhardt says, reaching a hand down to pat the man on his upturned welding mask. Torbjörn grumbles and slaps his hand away, stomping down the hallway away from the other two. Brigitte gives Reinhardt a look that’s a mix of gratitude and concern, then ducks in for a quick hug before following her father.

Reinhardt steps back into the room, shuts the door and presses his back against it, sighing in relief as Jack pokes his head out from the top of the covers. They’d settled in to watch some programme or another. Reinhardt is sure it was a crime drama, but he had fallen asleep almost immediately. Now that he’s awake, he’s hungry enough to eat a horse, but there is the matter of Jack.

“Jack,” he says, “if I go and get us lunch, am I going to return to an empty bed?”

“It’s more like dinner, with how late it is,” Jack says, but he looks guilty, shoulders sinking as he shuffles back under the sheets, and Reinhardt sighs. He wishes he didn’t have to catch Jack out like this constantly, but the other man hardly makes connecting with him easy. Reinhardt sighs and makes his way back over to the bed, sitting himself near Jack’s hip and holding his hand out. Jack takes it, and Reinhardt closes his other hand over Jack’s encasing their linked fingers.

“I’m not going to try and stop you from leaving,” says Reinhardt. “I would rather you stay, but I understand if you don’t want to.”

“I wouldn’t mind staying,” Jack says quickly.

The silence that settles around them after is heavy and oppressive, and Reinhardt feels his heart jump up into his throat. He had been prepared for the eventuality of Jack leaving, but he isn’t really sure what to do with the possibility of him _staying_.

“I just have some unfinished business to take care of.”

 _There it is_ , Reinhardt thinks. His heart slips down from his throat to the pit of his stomach, and Jack manages to catch that and grips his hand all the tighter. It actually hurts, just a little, but Reinhardt is glad for the intensity, the determination that Jack has to hold onto him.

“I’m coming back,” he says. “Just wait a little longer.”

Reinhardt hums, and he doesn’t so much look Jack in the eye as he does pull back and look at the man’s entire face. He takes in the crease of Jack’s brow and the small frown his mouth curves into. It’s an earnest look, and it’s more sincere than any he’s seen on Jack’s face for a long time. Usually, Reinhardt has noticed, he just looks _tired_.

“If you say you will, then I choose to believe you.” Jack’s relief is palpable, hands going slack and shoulders dropping. He exhales a sigh of relief, and tips forward to touch his forehead to one of Reinhardt’s shoulders. There is a small part of Reinhardt that would like to stay here for longer, but his stomach cramps, and he can hear Jack’s growl soon after. They’ve always been men with remarkably large appetites.

“Stay here, I’ll be back in a moment.”

 

He manages to beg off McCree trying to coax him into a movie night, as well as circumvent Hana asking for another guest appearance on her stream, and makes it back to his room with a few containers stacked atop each other, laden with the leftovers from yesterday; mainly rice, black beans, and steak, courtesy of Lúcio being the one who cooked. Today was Indian takeaway courtesy of Hana, the breadwinner of their little operation who dislikes cooking when it's her day. By sleeping in, they’ve missed the opportunity to grab most of it, and what’s left wouldn’t fill either of them up.

Jack looks up from where he's settled on the bed, fully dressed for one of his vigilante operations, sans mask and visor and with the addition of his glasses. He's leaving in a couple hours, Reinhardt knows, and it doesn't hurt any less, even though they’ll still be able to talk semi-regularly.

Jack perks up at the smell of food, sits up and puts the tablet aside, less reluctant to use it since it's Reinhardt’s and he knows he won't be tracked. He takes the plate that Reinhardt offers him, scoots closer to the edge of the bed and fumbles at the fork when it almost slides off his plate and onto the sheets. Reinhardt settles next to him and they eat like they did when they were younger and between missions, on those days where they wanted to share their meager spare time with each other and in private.

“It's good,” Jack says, using a small slice of steak to mop up the juice of the beans he's already finished.

“I can take no credit. Lúcio made it, all I did was watch the pots and stir occasionally.”

“I figured it wasn't you,” Jack teases. “Not enough pork.”

“Pork is a perfectly respectable meat.”

Jack hums and pops the morsel into his mouth, shrugging with one shoulder.

“I can think of others,” he says finally and gives Reinhardt a grin that makes the other man flush and jostle him.

“I’m not done eating yet, Jack.”

“I am,” he says and sets his plate on the dresser before stepping back toward the bed. “But I can wait.”

 

\-----

 

“We probably shouldn’t ruin the sheets a second time,” Reinhardt says from under him, lips swollen and voice rough with how breathless he is. Jack’s responsible, pleased to be and entirely unrepentant about taking his fill. It’s ridiculous, he thinks to himself, that he could go years without affection from anyone only to slip right back into wanting as much as he can get as soon as he sees Reinhardt again. He’s even hard again, cock pressing uncomfortably against his pants. As much as he’d be more than happy to grind them both to completion, he’s determined not to get _too_ carried away when he has to leave soon.

“Jack?”

“Hn? Sorry, got a little distracted there,” he says, and rocks his hips forward, pressing his ass back down on the swell of Reinhardt’s cock, still trapped in a pair of lounge pants. It’s a much more comfy prison than Jack’s own tactical wear, but he can’t say he’s taking it easy on the other man. He rocks back again, and Reinhardt lets his head flop back onto the pillows, panting and trying to buck up without throwing Jack off.

“You don’t need to try and appease me on our last night together,” Reinhardt wheezes, hands coming up to grip Jack’s hips and still them. “I would be fine just being here with y--”

Jack manages to get him quiet by leaning down and biting at the junction between neck and shoulder, a tried-and-true weak spot for Reinhardt that he’s pleased to see still holds after all these years. The other man squirms under him, and Jack blows lightly on the damp spot of saliva he’s left behind, relishing just slightly in Reinhardt’s shiver. He feels better like this, more in control of his life when he’s in control of Reinhardt, but there’s a warm feeling of gratitude that Reinhardt is even still willing to let him have this control.

“You make it incredibly hard for me to talk with you when you do that,” Reinhardt sighs, melodramatically long-suffering even as his voice trembles around the edges. Jack takes pity on him and settles down properly. He’s still on top of Reinhardt, still unwilling to move, but he isn’t grinding down anymore.

“I meant it you know. I’ll keep in touch. Send you messages, call, let you know how it’s going.” He feels Reinhardt tense under him, then everything unwinds in a long exhale from the man above him, and Jack feels fingers push through his hair and start combing through it. He wishes he could promise more, but he can’t. Even if they threw a wrench in LumériCo’s plans in Toledo, there’s more corporate corruption going on in the world. Even if he doesn’t think Overwatch is what it needs, there’s no hiding the fact that things have gotten a whole lot worse since it’s collapse.

And there’s still a matter of the meeting with Reaper, but he doesn’t want to think about that right now.

The world starts to turn.

Reinhardt moves under him so suddenly, that Jack reaches up and clings to his shoulders, finds his back against the mattress in a move so well-played it almost surprises him. He’s left looking up at the other man’s face, pinned against the bed by a pleased mass of warm bulk.

“Don’t dwell on it too much,” Reinhardt advises, and Jack snorts.

“That’s some advice, coming from _you_.”

Reinhardt hums and shrugs, leans down and kisses him lightly, then again and more deeply the second time around. Their lips move not quite together and Jack slides his tongue against Reinhardt’s lazily, letting himself linger in their kiss before pulling back.

“I admit I dwell on things,” Reinhardt says, “but I’m willing to put it aside for now. Let me give you something to remember me by.”

 

He barely makes it out of Reinhardt’s room by the time he’s set for himself. After so long out in the cold, sleeping alone on hard surfaces, leaving the embrace of a warm bed and a warm partner is harder than Jack would like to admit. Reinhardt kisses him as he’s trying to climb out the window, then again once he’s out, hand fisted in the collar of his still torn-up jacket, pulling him in again and again until Jack puts a gloved hand on his mouth to stop him.

“You keep this up and I’ll never leave.”

“A tragedy for the ages, I’m certain,” Reinhardt says, quick with a retort. Where Jack would have once taken offence, now he sees the quip a little more clearly as what it is. Reinhardt adores him, will miss him, but he’s still letting him go and that makes all the difference.

“I’ll be back,” he says finally, admitting it to himself and to Reinhardt, and the smile he gets from the other man in return makes his face warm behind his mask. Even as he turns away, the truth of his words sings in his heart and rings in his mind.

_I’ll be back. I’ll be back. I’ll be back._

_And this time, someone will be waiting for me._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That wraps it all up folks! 
> 
> This was originally intended to be part of a series, but after all the bullshit nonsense revels we keep getting from the broke-down station wagon that is lore for this game, I'm not entirely sure it'll work. Either way, this fic is wrapped up for now, and I hope you've enjoyed it.


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